Improved diagnostics and therapeutics delivery in diabetes fight

BEIJING -- During her work conducting community-based health screening, nursing practitioner Zhang Zhiping found that many people, including youngsters, would come to consult her on diabetes prevention and treatment.

"Most of the people wary of getting diabetes will describe their symptoms to us, and then get their blood sugar levels tested," said Zhang.

Zhang serves at the Workers' Hospital of Tengzhou in east China's Shandong Province. Every year, this hospital carries out free physical examinations checking for chronic diseases in local communities, which include diabetes screening. Once detected, diabetes patients will receive follow-up visits every three months.

Against the backdrop of an aging population and a change in people's lifestyles, the prevalence rate of diabetes continues to climb in China.

While 11.9 percent of Chinese adults are diagnosed with diabetes, 18.6 percent of them are prediabetic, according to data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

This disease, with complications that are main causes of blindness, kidney failure, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health events, as well as amputation in Chinese adults, is taking a heavy toll on people's health.

Most Chinese diabetes patients are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and the prevalence rate has increased more than 10 times in the past 30 years. In recent years, the disease has also become more prominent in the young population, said Ji Linong, head of the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism of Peking University People's Hospital.

To tackle the rising challenge of diabetes, China is striving to deliver more and better anti-diabetes diagnostics and therapeutics to the general public.

"In order to curb the prevalence of diabetes and delay its progression, we have adopted a three-level prevention strategy for different populations," said Li Jianhong, a chronic disease researcher at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Strengthening blood glucose screening for key groups is conducive to the diagnosis and treatment of diabetes at an early stage. It also helps reduce and delay the occurrence and development of complications, and improves the quality of life of diabetes patients, Li noted.

As a core objective of its Healthy China Initiative, China vows to improve the diagnosis, treatment and control of diabetes.

With the improvement of a tiered diagnosis and treatment system, as well as basic public health services, the capability of grassroots healthcare institutions to serve patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes has been further elevated, and the accessibility and affordability of anti-diabetes drugs has been notably boosted at the primary level, said Shi Wenhui, a researcher at the national campaign office of China Healthy Lifestyle for All.

Grassroots institutions across the country currently provide over 1 billion instances of health management services for patients with diabetes, hypertension and other major diseases each year, Shi noted.

Facing the increasing rate of diabetes in China in recent years, Zhang's hospital has ramped up efforts to spread awareness and knowledge of diabetes prevention and control to community residents.

"Every time we organize a health lecture in the community, many residents will attend, which is reflective of people's strong awareness of the matter," said Zhang.