SERI ISKANDAR: A total of 47,842 individuals out of 119,002 in Perak have been screened to be prediabetic through the National Health Screening Initiative (NHSI) by the Health Ministry (MoH).
State Human Resources, Health, Indian Community Affairs, National Integration Committee chairman, A Sivanesan, said the statistics on individuals at risk of contracting the disease are very worrying.
He said screening should be done to identify the health status, disease, the risk of disease occurrence in addition to delaying the occurrence of complications of the disease.
"This year we have targeted 113,000 individuals aged 18 and above in Perak to undergo NHSI screening activities since it was launched by the Health Ministry in July last year.
"Until October 26, a total of 98,158 individuals have been screened through the MySejahtera platform and another 20,844 through the PekaB40 platform, making the total number 119,002, exceeding the outlined target," he said when speaking at the Perak state level World Diabetes Day Celebration at Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) near here, today (November 7).
Sivanesan said, most of them are aware and know the factors that cause diabetes, but do not consider it a serious matter and do not seek proper treatment.
"Prediabetes is a stage where a person has a screening reading range that is at risk of getting a chronic non-communicable disease if no early intervention is done.
"Those who are in the prediabetes stage do not give any symptoms to their sufferers and only the screening method is able to know that someone is in the prediabetes stage," he added.
He said, in Malaysia, about 3.9 million people aged 18 and above or 18.3 per cent of them have diabetes and what is more worryingly is that half of that number are unaware of their disease status.
"A total of 547 million adults aged 20 to 79 years globally have diabetes in 2021 and the International Diabetes Federation expects that number to increase to 643 million by 2030 and 783 million patients by 2045.
"The Direct Healthcare Cost of Noncommunicable Disease in Malaysia report has estimated that RM4.38 billion was spent for the year 2017 on diabetes treatment," he said.
He said, early detection or disease screening is an important element in the prevention of disease and it needs to be done so that it can be prevented at the right time before it is too late. --BERNAMA
