The Ministry of Health (MOH) has inaugurated today "Monday" the activities of the World Diabetes Day under the theme "Eyes on Diabetes".
On this occasion, it highlighted the importance of exerting more efforts and intensifying awareness campaigns to help raising the awareness of the Saudi society about the risks of chronic diseases, mainly diabetes and its impact and risks that may afflict the patient.
It said that the media and social networking channels should be used in a way that is appropriate to all segments of the society, as well as organizing activities, exhibitions and national campaigns throughout the year in order to raise the health awareness of the community and briefing them on their rights and making partnership in the field of awareness between the MOH and other sectors.
Citing recent statistics, the MOH said that diabetes is one of the diseases that have reached dangerous levels, and the number of people with diabetes is terrifying, ranging between 20-30% and the most affected age group is between 40-50 years.
It pointed out that early statistics and epidemiological studies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States indicated that diabetes is reaching epidemic proportions at the national level and according to the estimations of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) in 2015, the people with diabetes amounted to 20% of population in many of the Council States. The incidence rate of glycometabolism (rate of cases with a susceptibility to the disease in the future) is increasable, meaning that the Gulf society has or will be having high rates of diabetes compared to other countries.