Health minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey (left) at the event. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Patna, March 8: State Health Society, Bihar entered into a collaboration with Novo Nordisk Education Foundation (NNEF) today to tackle the growing threat of diabetes.

Changing Diabetes Barometer, a diabetes management programme, was launched to mark the signing of the MoU between State Health Society, Bihar and NNEF at an event in the capital.

State health minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey said the collaboration aimed at undertaking a massive diabetes control programme, which would include creating mass awareness on diabetes, conducting diabetes screening programmes, enabling practical training camps for medical professionals, improving treatment of diabetes with focus on reducing complications related to the disease and working towards making Bihar free from diabetes-related amputation and blindness. He stressed that the state government had set target to cover around 50 lakh people under the initiative.

State Health Society, Bihar executive director Sanjay Kumar said the maximum number of diabetes patients — 50.8 million — in the country has made India the present world capital of diabetes. “Though a state-specific data is not available yet, according to our estimates, almost 10 per cent of total diabetes patients in the country are in Bihar, which is worrisome. Every 10 seconds, a person in India dies from diabetes related causes. Addressing diabetes is impeded by lack of information about the disease as well as lack of prevention and education measures. It is vital for all parties concerned to get together and work towards bringing diabetes awareness, screening, education and treatment to the common man,” said Kumar.

Melvin D’Souza, managing trustee, NNEF, said to start with, the initiatives will be taken in Patna, Nalanda and Bhagalpur districts before being extended to each district of the state. “Under the initiative, mobile vans for free check of the disease will be sent to various areas. Specially trained doctors, paramedics and Asha workers will treat people at health centres and mobile check-up centres,” he said before adding that a team from Denmark will train about 1,200 doctors for the purpose.

Kumar added it was estimated that diabetes accounts for between per cent and 10 per cent of a nation’s health budget. He also announced after Tamil Nadu and Delhi, Bihar was set to become the third state in the country where pregnant women were being tested for diabetes at primary health centres and other health institutions before being treated free of cost if detected with the disease.