600,000 Screened For Hypertension, Diabetes

As Lagos State begins preparation for another round of the state wide free hypertension and diabetes screening, the state government says no fewer than 600,000 people have so far benefitted from eight rounds of the programme.

Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris, who disclosed this in Lagos at the opening of a Train-the-Trainers workshop for health workers in the state in preparation for the commencement of the 9th round of the programme, explained that government embarked on the programme in order to combat the two non-communicable diseases in view of the danger to people’s health and economic loss to both individuals and governments that these two diseases posed.

Idris, who spoke through the Director, Disease Control, Dr. Olufemi Taiwo, stressed the importance of the training exercise to the programme, adding that the training would help the health workers in each of the local governments that would drive the exercise better equipped.

“This training is so essential as there is the need to educate and sensitize our health workers from various local government areas and to refresh their minds. It is expected that those trained would take the training to other health workers in their local government areas, he said.”

He pointed out that the 9th round of the screening exercise had been scheduled to run between 10 and 16 April, 2012, simultaneously in the 20 Local Government Areas and 37 Local Council Development Areas of the State.

—Kazeem Ugbodaga