Pretoria – First Lady and patron of the Bongi Ngema-Zuma Foundation (BNZ), Bongi Ngema-Zuma, has joined hands with Ekurhuleni World Outreach Centre (EWOC) church to host the annual World Diabetes Day.
“The aim of this whole event is to engage local communities to recognise the importance of early awareness of the risks and dangers of diabetes.
“Further to this, to educate about warming signs and risk factors for diabetes and that in many cases type 2 diabetes can be prevented or the onset thereof prolonged through healthy eating and physical activity,” said Ngema-Zuma in Ekurhuleni on Saturday.
According to Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi and as revealed by Statistics South Africa’s latest report, 8.27% of South Africans have diabetes while 8.3% have Impaired Glucose Tolerance.
“My vision, which has now been adopted by this Foundation is to see a South Africa where diabetes ceases to be a killer due to lack of awareness,” said Ngema-Zuma.
World Diabetes Day is commemorated under the theme “Healthy Eating and Diabetes”.
Critically, diabetes exacerbates TB, HIV and Aids, the latter being a profoundly defined burden on society.
According to the International Diabetes Federation diabetes atlas released in October 2014, 400 million people live with the disease in the world, in Africa, the number is 21 million.
If nothing is done to address this pandemic, the number of people living with diabetes will increase to 592 million in 2035.
An estimated 3 000 citizens attend and participated in the activities of the event.
VIP guests who have been invited include the Premier of Gauteng, the Executive Mayor of Ekurhuleni and other business leaders. – SAnews.gov.za
