City-based NGO's portal to battle diabetes

AHMEDABAD: Stop Diabetes, a city-based NGO, has launched a portal to create awareness about the disease and ways to fight it. The NGO officials have also vowed to train 1,200 community doctors and 2,000 paramedical staff to detect the disease early and manage existing cases.
The website, www.stopdiabetesindia.org, was launched by S J Mukhopadhaya, chief justice of Gujarat high court, at Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) on Sunday.Dr Mayur Patel, the project's mentor, said that the project was launched in 2010 on November 14, the World Diabetes Day and so far more than 8,000 persons have been screened in 30 camps. During the camps, 3,849 cases of the disease were detected.
Patel said that the portal will not only act as a resource on diabetes with regular updates on research, but will also have an interactive section where experts will provide guidance to patients and visitors. "Gujarat is one of the states with the highest number of diabetic patients," Patel said. "Talking about India, it has the highest number of diabetic people, approximately 33 million in 2003. If proper preventive measures are not taken, it will escalate further with the number increasing to 57.2 million by 2025."
Early detection and early intervention are vital to combat diabetes and its complications, said experts.