Ghanaians urged to undertake regular diabetes tests

Speakers at the World Diabetes Day celebration in Ho on Thursday called on the public to regularly test for the disease and avoid cigarette smoking, alcohol intake, bad eating habits and inactive lifestyles that predispose to the disease.
The theme for the celebration was “Let’s take control of diabetes now”.

Dr William Bosu, the Director of non-Communicable Diseases of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), said there were growing diabetes related hospital admissions than malaria.

He said at a time 44 percent of amputations at the Korle-Bu Teaching hospital were due to diabetes rather than motor accidents.

Dr Bosu said the growing incidence of the disease and its associated health challenges therefore called for regular public education on how to avoid it.

Mr Vincent Adjato-Ntem, the Volta Regional Coordinating Director, said indications were that diabetes was assuming a frightening posture world-wide and needed to be tackled seriously.

He said failure to act against the disease now would mean committing the future of children to it.

Madam Florence Atta, Senior Nursing Officer in charge of the Diabetes Centre of the Volta Regional Hospital, said the “number of people with diabetes worldwide is expected to increase alarmingly in the coming decades.”

She said signs and symptoms of the disease include frequent urinating and thirst, unexplained weight loss, genital itching or regular episodes of thrust and slow healing of cuts.

The rest are blurred vision, extreme tiredness, tingling or less feeling in hands and feet and sexual dysfunction in men.

“Anyone who observed the above symptoms can just walk into any health facility to check his or her blood glucose.”

Source: GNA