The national campaign for the prevention of complications due to chronic diseases, diabetes and arterial hypertension was launched by the Ministry of Health and Social Protection (MSPS). It emphasizes the vital need to raise awareness among citizens and to remind people of the importance of early diagnosis in people at high risk.
According to data from the Ministry of Health, the Kingdom today has more than 25,000 diabetic children, more than 2.7 million diabetic adults, 49% of whom are unaware of their disease and more than 2.2 million pre-diabetics, knowing in besides that 56% of people with diabetes suffer from hypertension, an association that exposes them to serious health complications, notes a press release from the MSPS.
Thus, chronic diseases, diabetes and arterial hypertension are considered among the major public health problems in view of their high prevalence and their constant increase, knowing that their detection and control are still insufficient, despite their heavy impact on increased cardiovascular and renal risk. They are therefore a real medical, social and economic concern for Morocco, specifies the same source.
In its press release, the department of Khalid Ait Taleb pointed out that it is now clearly established that a sedentary lifestyle, poor eating habits and the obesity that follows are all predictive factors of cardiovascular risk, in particular the risk of arterial hypertension, often associated with type 2 diabetes when these factors add up in the context of a metabolic syndrome, with a multiplicative effect on the overall cardiovascular risk.
This national campaign for the prevention of complications due to chronic diseases, continues the ministry, is justified by the vital need to raise awareness among citizens and to recall the importance of early diagnosis of diabetes and high blood pressure in people at high risk, which allows rapid management to avoid complications. The management of diabetes and / or arterial hypertension, when it is correct, indeed avoids the development of serious and costly complications and reduces premature mortality, says the MSPS.
In this sense, the recommendations insist on the importance of smoking cessation as well as on the change of eating habits and the establishment of regular physical activity in order to control one’s weight, these actions being considered as integral parts of the management. of any patient in association with drug treatment.
Morocco, it is underlined, continues to increase its investments in the care and prevention of diabetes and high blood pressure in order to ensure access to care for all people with these diseases, which can only be controlled through coordinated and concerted actions between decision-makers, health professionals and the various partners, including the patients themselves, since these diseases involve both individual and collective responsibility.
Moreover, the Ministry of Health takes care of more than one million people with diabetes and more than 1,800,000 hypertensive patients at the level of primary health care establishments.
However, and despite the efforts made by Morocco to prevent diabetes and reduce inequalities in access to means of diagnosis and care and to integrate its management into all the services covered by universal health insurance, the The epidemiological situation of diabetes and its economic impact remain very worrying.