DHA and DecideTM Join Efforts for “Do You Fit The Bill?” - A Diabetes Risk Factor Awareness Campaign in Dubai

Campaign will build awareness and educate the community on the risk factors that cause diabetes to help prevent the condition and also monitor the undiagnosed cases

Dubai, UAE, September 04th, 2013: Dubai Health Authority (DHA) – Primary Healthcare Centers (PHC), and DecideTM Diabetes Programme, supported by its partners MPC, Merck Serono and Lifescan have signed an MoU (memorandum of understanding) for the ‘Diabetes Risk Factor Awareness Campaign' in Dubai. The objective this campaign is to build awareness and educate the community on the risk factors that cause diabetes; this shall enable people to prevent and even detect the condition at an early stage.

As part of the campaign a risk factor survey will be distributed to all the patients at DHA's primary healthcare centres. The patients that score high results in diabetes risk factor survey will be further diagnosed at those centers. A special DHA-PHC medical team will be dedicated to follow up with patients that need further diagnosis and proper management. The result of the survey will then be shared with the public to educate and raise further awareness.

Dr. Ahmed Ibrahim Saif bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of the Primary Health Care - DHA, said, “We are working towards a healthier community in Dubai. As part of this approach DHA has embarked on several initiatives to tackle chronic diseases and support the society. UAE has so far taken positive steps in managing diabetes. With regard to diabetes, UAE used to be ranked 2nd  globally and now we have fallen below the 10th position which is a very positive sign. Further efforts are being undertaken to increase community awareness against diabetes and also early detection and prevention.”

Dr. Mohamed Naser Farghaly, Director Health Affair Department, DHA, said, “Early detection of Type 2 Diabetes is very important and critical because this type of diabetes is preventive. This initiative will start at DHA's Primary Healthcare Centers, and we are looking forward to extend it later on to the other medical centers across Dubai. This campaign has a 2 pronged approach that will be conducted by PHC assigned medical team. The first one is a non-invasive initiative that identifies through a survey the high risk individuals who might end up with type 2 diabetes in the near future aiming at helping them at an early stage. The second stage is where suspected individuals will be screened by further invasive steps and those diagnosed with condition will be followed up by DHA's primary healthcare professionals. It ‘s worth mentioning that this initiative reaches out to a larger community compared to randomized screening within the same time period and proper management will follow immediately if required.”

Jan Felton, Chief Executive Officer of Modern Pharmaceutical Company, said 'Diabetes will be the biggest healthcare challenge facing the UAE in the coming 20 years. MPC and its partners, Merck Serono and Lifescan are proud to partner with the DHA in this campaign to raise the awareness of the population. Over 30% of people who have diabetes remain un-diagnosed and this is a huge risk to their wellbeing and the happiness of their family. I hope that many thousands of people will take the couple of minutes required for the survey as early detection can add years to your life.'

“One of the main scope of DecideTM program is to educate the community against Diabetes and its risk factors in an attempt to prevent or limit the condition. DecideTM has had the pleasure to join efforts with DHA against diabetes across various initiatives. In particular through “Do You Fit the Bill?”, the Diabetes Risk Factor Awareness Campaign, we are raising the flag specifically to those living with diabetes but unaware of their condition so that they will have the chance to uncover it and manage it and equally to those at high risk to develop diabetes so they may probably manage their case before diabetes knocks their door, said,” Wadad Aboul Khoudoud, Decide Diabetes Programme Director.

Decide™ not only seeks to educate people affected by diabetes, but is also involved in helping family members understand how they can better support those who live with the condition. This is attained through promoting healthy eating habits, encouraging physical exercise and overall management and monitoring of the various areas of the body that can be impacted by diabetes. Globally this condition has the reputation of being present in an individual without symptoms for many years.

Dubai Health Authority (DHA) and DecideTM have conducted close to 8500 blood sugar screening activities at various establishments such as hospitals, organisations and clubs in the UAE since September 2011 to raise awareness on diabetes prevention and management.