DUBAI // The first dedicated diabetes centre for children opened yesterday, the latest step in the country’s fight to control an illness that is growing alarmingly among young people.
The UAE has the second highest rate of the disease in the world, with the majority of victims suffering from Type 2 diabetes.
“Children and parents have a problem in lack of education on the disease,” said Dr Abdulrazzaq al Madani, the chairman of the Emirates Diabetes Society. “We aim at teaching them how to manage their food, their insulin, their lifestyle and exercise.”
The Juvenile Diabetes Education Center, in Dubai’s Healthcare City, opened in the same week as World Diabetes Day, which falls on Friday.
Also this week, staff from Sheikh Khalifa Medical City’s Diabetes and Endocrinology Center launched a major programme in government schools to educate pupils about risk factors for the disease. The diabetes centre will offer an online 24-hour monitoring system, which will enable parents and doctors to keep track of the blood-sugar levels of children with the condition at all times.
The aim is to allow children and their families to manage the disease on a daily basis at home and at school so the children can live as normally as possible.
Children with diabetes will be able to take their blood-sugar level daily, download it to a programme on their mobile phones and send the results to the centre’s website via SMS, Dr Mohammed Khaled, the centre’s manager said. There it can be monitored and a suitable lifestyle programme drawn up.
The centre, run in partnership with the Johnson and Johnson Corporate Citizenship Trust, opens at a time when diabetes and obesity are becoming an increasing problem among the young. Diabetes is estimated to be as high as one in five, with statistics from the World Health Organisation stating it could affect 70 per cent of UAE residents.
Nour Samaha
Page last updated 01 January 2020