DIABETES MELLITUS, THE UNCHECKED HEALTH CHALLENGE OF THE RURAL NIGERIA

Nigeria, though one of the several offsprings of continent Africa widely regarded as the• largest black nation of the world is bedeviled with numerous challenges associated with third world nations including those the big boys of the world regard as things of the distant past. Factually, the country is being viewed by the international community as the big brother to other African countries most probably because of her natural endowment, advantaged economic condition as well as other merits which are either non-existent or are abysmal in other sub-Saharan nations. In view of the vantage position and an unparalleled Pedestal our nation finds herself compared to her neighbours, the world bodies such as WHO a subsidiary of United Nations, see her as a veritable widow and medium of information and dissemination of their programmes, activities and actions. From all ramifications, the advanced economies see and take Nigeria as Africa see and take Europe, Asia and America.


In view of the unfolding millennium global health challenges, demerits and their concomitant effects on the people, enough sensitization need to be created concerning the causes, effects and possible prevention of these diseases where such preventive measures exist. In the early days of the introduction of the world’s today’s greatest pandemic, HIV/AIDS, we could hear from such world body as WHO accuse Nigeria of not creating much awareness about the killer disease that has defied all solutions. Ever since the accusation of inaction about the millennium killer disease, the country has more than tripled her valid machineries and a day hardly passes without us getting one or two pieces of information concerning HN/AIDS, malaria, leprosy, tuberculosis etc. In Nigeria, there is the NACA headed by Prof. John Idoko. Every December 3 is celebrated as world's AIDS day. Nigeria observes this day religiously. There is also Roll back Malaria programme which handles anything that is concerned with creating awareness with the transmission, prevention and treatment of malaria. The country also has a programme and a day for tuberculosis; there is world leprosy day etc. Without mincing words, awareness and more and more sensitization and information are created about those deadly diseases on daily basis to the extent that even people in the rural areas are not unaware of these pieces of information. Today, even a woman in our country's local market can tell you one or two things about HIV/AIDS. Ironically, while much attention is given to the above enumerated diseases possibly because of their endemic nature or as a threat to human existence, diabetes is quietly eating deeper into the fabrics of people's health. From a health programme conducted in my local community of Enyiogugu, the best way to describe the rate of diabetic patients is outrageously unbelievable. The-more I go through the records of Team Africa and their programmes in Enyiogugu in November 2011, the more it dawns on me that diabetes in Nigeria is placed where other sports activities are placed compared to football.


Presumably, the insurgence and rampancy of the ailment is prevalent due lack of information on the causative factors. Long before the arrival of the Team Africa, our people had always referred to the ailment as "oria shuga" simply interpreted directly to mean "sugar ailment"; but for the little I know, diabetes is an insulin problem and not sugar problem. How many people know this? As it stands at the moment, my local community, according to the statistics of Team Africa, suffers from diabetes more than malaria and HIVIAIDS or any other of the earlier named. In a recent radio interview with an expert, the director of Diabetes and Hypertension Help Society of Nigeria, she maintained that a radical shift in dieting decades ago could be a vital contributing factor if not the major factor that causes and aggravates this non-communicable killer disease. From further facts available to us on other causative factors of diabetes including age, obesity, physical inaction, inheritance, impaired glucose tolerance, race or ethnicity etc and considering the ample troth that ours is a dataless society, the fear of the aggravation of this health risk is heightened even more than those in authorities appear to be less concerned. In my local government area, diabetes till tomorrow, remains the fastest growing public health challenge in the area. This should not be surprising considering the level of malnutrition associated with the people not only due to economic down turn but ignorance.


Again, health experts aver that regular checking of sugar level, daily exercise as well as dieting go a long way in checking the disease. Be this as it may, the ready made questions are, how many people are aware of these and how many of them are ready to conform let alone adapt to these remedy approaches? On her own, the government is not helping matters. Attention should be drawn and accorded to the disease as much as is given to other deadly' diseases afore enumerated. There is hardly anyone that dies in my locale today without the issue of diabetes. The time to check this ugly trend is now!

 

Chikere Ajaero
Project Manage, EDF.