The Lagos State Government is appealing to residents to come out en mass for the 9th round of the state wide free hypertension and diabetics screening, which holds between April 10 and 13, 2012.
The exercise holds in all the local government area and local council development area offices in the state.
Dr. Yewande Adeshina, the Special Adviser on Public Health in the state’s Ministry of Health, made the appeal at a press briefing on Tuesday.
Adeshina said the free screening exercise will go a long way in checking the dangers of the diseases in the country.
Adesina said: “Non Communicable Diseases like hypertension and diabetics are the leading cause of functionary impairment and death in the world as these diseases represents 60 per cent of all death.
“By 2020, it is predicted that NCDs will be causing seven out of every 10 deaths in developing countries.
“Lagos State, being the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria, has peculiar environmental and other risks factors that predispose residents to Non Communicable Diseases.
“however, during the 8th round of the state wide hypertension and diabetics screening exercise that took place from 14th -19th November 2011 our findings revealed that a total of 75,645 people were screened, 64.2 per cent were female and 35.8 per cent males; 4.2 per cent were found to be diabetic while 14.8 per cent were hypertensive.”
According to Dr. Adeshina, women are more predisposed to health care services as a large number turned out, adding: “Hypertension is called the silent killer because many people have the disease without knowing as both hypertension and diabetics are potentially fatal; may be due to the men’s work schedule, most of our men do not turn out for screening.
“This is a sad trend because this may contribute to the higher number of deaths among men than women.”
Statistics by the Lagos state Ministry of Health shows that 57.7 per cent of the total hypertension cases in the state were mild, 42.3 per cent moderate, severe or malignant hypertension while 1,151 cases have hypertension and diabetics.
Also, it was disclosed that persons with hypertension were aged between 41 and 60, with a corresponding bracket for diabetics being 61 to 80 years old.
More than 600,000 people have benefitted from the first eight rounds of screening.