The Ministry of Public Health along with other health care facilities across Qatar is planning for a nationwide screening for diabetes in 2019, disclosed an official from Hamad Medical Corporation ( HMC) on Wednesday.
“We hope to include all the residents in the country and there will be a major campaign to promote the screening programme,” said Dr Mahmoud Zirie, senior consultant and head of endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism Department of Medicine, HMC. 
“We have set the guidelines for the screening and already identified the high risk and target groups. We encourage all the people to get screened in the health facilities all around the country,"explained Dr Zirie at a press conference along with Manal Musallam Othman, director of Diabetes Education, HMC.
The physician said that HMC is organising several activities on the occasion of World Diabetes Day.
“We will hold the third edition of Qatar Diabetes and Endocrinology and Metabolism Conference in Sheraton Doha from tomorrow. We will have several workshops and conference programmes,” explained the official.
“We expect about 600 to 700 attendees and we have nine international and regional speakers in addition to local speakers from public and private sector in Qatar. The international speakers are from the US, European countries and from the region including Kuwait and Oman,” he continued.
According to Othman, there are several programmes to educate people about diabetes. “We visit people at various places. During the diabetes activities, there were awareness programmes for companies and their employees. We conducted a walkathon as well as many activities at Al Bidda Park. We screened a lot of people and identified several new diabetes cases. We also visited a number of schools and plan to continue the school c visits to raise awareness on diabetes,” she added.
Related Story