Frequent blood glucose test. (Illustrative photo)

He made the statement at a meeting (on Nov 7) to raise people’s awareness of prediabetes in response to the World Diabetes Day (on November 14).

Around 373.9 millions of people aged from 20 to 79 suffer pre-diabetes accounting for 7.5 percent of the world’s population. Of 373.9 millions of people, 5.3 millions of Vietnamese have pre-diabetes. It is forecast that by 2045, approximately 7.9 millions of people have pre-diabetes.

According to Chairman Dang, prediabetes means a person has a higher than normal blood sugar level; but not high enough yet to be diagnosed as type 2 diabetes which is one of four non-communicable diseases causing leading death in the world and in the Southeast Asian country.

The national non-communicable disease prevention strategy for the 2015 – 2025 period outlined the goal to reduce people with prediabetes and diabetes, people with disabilities and deaths related to the non-communicable diseases.

Moreover, the country will monitor the rate of pre-diabetes patients aged 30 to 69 under 16 percent. The health sector will screen people because early screening, discovery and treatment on people with pre-diabetes will help reducing the rate of people with type 2 diabetes as well as prevent complications of heart disease and diabetes to improve people’s life, said Chairman Dang.

Most of pre-diabetes people are discovered to have the disease when they undergo periodic medical check-ups or discover accidentally when they are being treated other disease. Vietnamese people don’t have habit to actively take the blood glucose test. SGGP 

Thanh Son 

Some 6.3 million Vietnamese predicted to suffer diabetes by 2045

About 69% of the Vietnamese suffer from undetected hyperglycemia, and only 29% of people with diabetes are being treated.