Karachi: Due to the staggering growth of diabetic patients coupled with the comparatively low scale of awareness among the masses, Roche Diabetes Care has taken a groundbreaking initiative in collaboration with DoctHERs, titled Project Kaarvaan. As part of this initiative, Roche Diabetes Care aims to propagate the preventive as well as treatment education amongst PwDs (People with Diabetes). As per studies, if enough cognizance is not made available to the general public regarding diabetes, the disease burden is expected to increase by 67% by the year 2030.
More than 415 million people in the world are suffering from diabetes. Pakistan is ranked fourth all over the world for having the highest number of diabetic patients with the recent count having climbed as high as 19.1 million – making up around 17% of the country’s total population. As per studies, about 45% of diabetic patients in Pakistan are undiagnosed.
Project Kaarvaan is a concept based on collaborative education., “This collaboration with DoctHERs is another part of our mass awareness initiatives around Diabetes. As part of this initiative, we will train doctors, nurses, and lady health workers around this disease, its management and the use of a glucometer, to enable them to equip the patients with the knowledge they need to monitor this disease”, Head of Roche Diabetes Care, Sohail Malik, mentioned while speaking about the need and significance of this project. Under this collaboration, Roche Diabetes Care will be formally onboarding about 150 doctors, 12 nurses, and 150 LHVs. These professionals will be working as the ambassadors of the program and will be educating groups of masses about preventive diabetes management, its treatment, symptoms, early diagnosis, insulin advocacy, usage of glucometers, and busting myths. These professional ambassadors would be connecting with a network of PwDs to promote collective consciousness about the disease.
“This awareness takes place at two levels, patient level, but before that at the healthcare worker’s level. So with this initiative, we are endeavoring to increase the capacity of these healthcare practitioners regarding Diabetes, so they can educate the patients they interact with on a daily basis.” Khaqan Sikander, CEO DoctHers elaborated.