The Health Secretary José Narro Robles warned that each year in Mexico 90,000 people were killed by diabetes, this disease accounting for one in every seven deaths, urgently calling on Mexicans to invest in their health by adopting healthy habits, such as healthy eating, physical activity and education for children and youth.
As part of celebrating the 2016 World Health Day, with the slogan, “Apura el paso, gánale a la Diabetes” (Hasten the step, Beat Diabetes), Narro Robles said, “We have to focus our efforts on convincing that the greatest investment that a human being can do is, precisely, not in a financial account, not in the stock market, but in their own health. That’s where we can positively affect the population, and can do it themselves with active participation.”
“The year 2014, in which we have complete information, is the last year for which we have estimates that show more than 90,000 Mexicans died from diabetes. This represents nothing less than one of each of these deaths in the country,” he said.
Accompanied by the general director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Carissa F. Etienne, the health secretary inaugurated the technical meeting on Diabetes in the Americas saying that the diabetes epidemic is increasing rapidly in many countries, and in an extraordinary manner in low- and middle-income countries.
Addressing representatives of various health ministries of the Region of the Americas, state directors of health promotion, representatives of civil society and doctors of the medical branch of the UNAM, Dr. Narro Robles stressed that you can beat diabetes, but this requires involving society through public policies for the home, school and workplace.
He stressed the importance of this meeting, because what is required is to raise awareness that diabetes is a priority and a major challenge, for which the country has been working for almost three years through the National Strategy for Prevention and Control of Obesity and Diabetes.
