Gujarat government to treat diabetes as public health challenge

In an acknowledgement that the prevalence of diabetes has reached alarming proportions in the state, the Gujarat government has decided to treat the disease as a public health challenge.

In fact, for the first time, ministers and bureaucrats will deliberate on ways to devise a strategy to combat the disease at the Chintan Shibir - the annual brainstorming session of the government - to be held later this month at Ektanagar.

A multi-pronged strategy - both preventive and curative - will be worked out at the brainstorming session with the aim of controlling the rapidly increasing prevalence of diabetes in the state, government officials said.

This will include a number of awareness activities up to the village level and equipping health centres with instruments to detect diabetes.

The Gujarat government is also expected to include diabetes test in its state-wide medical check-up programme for school students, even as a sharp increase in diabetes among juveniles has been observed of late, officials said.

According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) report released in 2022, the prevalence of high and very high random blood glucose (RBG) (above 141 mg/dl) among women was 14.8% and 16.1% among men.

To put the figure in perspective, the last survey in 2015-16 (NFHS-4) had the same levels at 5.8% and 7.6% respectively.

As per this data, the number of women with diabetes has nearly tripled, and the number of diabetic men has more than doubled.

Among the major states (with population more than 3 crore), Gujarat ranked fourth in women and fifth in men categories for the high RBG.

Across India, 12.4% women and 14.4% men had reported high RBG.