Preventing one diabetes case saves $297 annually

While millions of citizens are at risk of becoming the patients of diabetes in the country, speakers citing researches said overall $297 could be saved annually if a single diabetes case could be prevented.

Speakers said this at a dialogue titled ‘Policy Dialogue on Integrated DM and DR Services – Reaching the Unreached’ organized by Orbis International, Bangladesh in the capital on Sunday.

Citing several online research publications at BMC Health Services, Project Director of Centre for Global Health Research under Bangladesh Diabetic Samity (Badas) Dr Bishwajit Bhowmik said: “Overall, US$297 could be saved annually by preventing a single case of diabetes.”

A research done by Indian researchers in 2008, showed that in the country around 40 per cent of the people having pre-diabetes convert to diabetes during follow-up. Experts in Bangladesh said the rate in the country ranges from 15 per cent to 22 per cent. According to International Diabetes Federation, in 2019 there were 8.4 million adults living with diabetes and it projected the almost double (15.0 million) figure by 2045.

It is also estimated that another 3.8 million people had pre-diabetes in Bangladesh in 2019.

In that case, the country now has minimum 570,000 people having pre-diabetes. Following the statement mentioned by Dr Bishwajit if these cases could be prevented the country could save at least US$141.93 million.

The total annual per capita expenditure on medical care is six times higher for people with diabetes.

If they have complication the cost grew higher. According to researches Dr Bishwajit mentioned that the average annual cost was US$864.7 per patient.

The average annual cost for patients with hospitalization was 4.2 times higher compared to those without hospitalization.

Using CHCP is the key

According to findings from their current project presented by Orbis International, Bangladesh during the policy dialogue, they screened some 110,285 people with Diabetes mellitus (DM). Of them 14,337 were found to have Diabetes Retinopathy.

The project was implemented with Community Based Health Care (CBHC) and Non-Communicable Disease Control (NCDC) programmes and Badas.

Speakers at the programme said screening at field level is a must to find out the people having diabetes or complicated diabetes issues.

Dr Masud Reza Kabir, Line Director of Community Based Health Care (CBHC) under DGHS, confessed that manpower under his programme lacked knowledge about diabetes.

But the truth is that if the screening could not be started from CHBC level the movement to control diabetes would not be fruitful in any way.