Yesterday health professionals and decision-makers of the health sector came out to mark another set-aside Day; this time world health day.

The peculiarity about this one is that is was addressing, in a very specific manner, problems of diabetes. “Be stronger than diabetes” is the theme. Very timely indeed because of the debilitating effects of this disease which has set once strongly bounded families apart because of the difficulty in healing it.

For many Cameroonian families, the announcement that a family member has been discovered to be suffering from diabetes is a difficult moment to accommodate because of the fatalistic ramifications about the handling of the disease. For Christians, it is said in Genesis that God gave us all the power to dominate the universe, but our inability to manage same the way He prescribed it has been at the origin of our edgy posture in the face of some of these scourges.

The same God has also given us many escape routes out of these grueling situations. Let’s examine some of them: a few years ago, it was difficult to imagine any form of treatment for AIDS and any form of association with it was inexorably linked to certain death. So have been other cases such as hypertension, high blood pressure and even cancers of various origins. Science, which can be considered a gift of nature to enable us divulge the wonders of God, has today eased our understanding of some of these difficulties, to the extent that many of these pathologies can be handled even if a definitive cure is still to be found for that.

In this vein, we have observed that people afflicted by HIV or AIDS can live for as long as they wish, on condition that they conform to the treatment protocols prescribed for their specific conditions. The same can be said of those suffering from hypertension who, just a few years ago, could not imagine managing the ailment with drugs, sport and diet. There are countless Cameroonians who have lost close relatives or dear ones from diabetes. Science, but above all awareness and opening up to free discussion and exchange of ideas, has made it possible today to handle diabetes, making it virtually a disease-friendly ailment simply because the observance of simple hygiene rules can enable one to live with it for many more years than was the case some time ago.

Nature has endowed us with such a rich environment that most of the vegetables prescribed for a good diabetes-free or diabetes-management programme can be easily accessed. Vegetable stands in food markets throughout the country are awash with fruits and vegetables that can keep away the growth or development of diabetes. Moreover, patients of diabetes henceforth have several possibilities to select from in assessing the level of attack in the system.

Controlling sugar levels has become very easy, especially as it is possible to jump into a pharmacy or drug store and get a sugar level determined within minutes while several machines have been made easily available with which, without much technical assistance, patients can control their sugar or insulin levels and in so doing reduce the level of ignorance which has hitherto been responsible for many attacks, often leading to death. In this context, the situation of diabetes cannot be said to be as worrying as it was recently.