Government Steps to Curb Type-1 Diabetes
For maintaining Diabetes record, there is a registry maintained by the Indian Council of Medical Research called as the Young Diabetes Registry (YDR) since year 2006. The YDR registry recruits patients with young onset diabetes, diagnosed on or before 25 years of age. The registry operates at 205 centres from 10 cities across India. According to the YDR registry data out of 20351 young diabetes patients recruited, 13368 (65.6%) were type 1 diabetes. According to the 10th International Diabetes Federation Atlas 2021, the number of children with type 1 diabetes in India is 22,94,000 in the age group of 0 – 19 years.
A sub study from the ICMR-YDR registry also estimated the annual incidence of type 1 diabetes from the cities of Delhi and Chennai. According to this study, the average annual incidence of type 1 diabetes (below 20 years) is 4.9 cases/1,00,000 populations.
Even though Health being a state subject, the Department of Health & Family Welfare provides technical and financial support to the States/UTs under the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke (NPCDCS), as part of National Health Mission (NHM), based on the proposals received from the States/UTs. Diabetes is an integral part of the NPCDCS. Under the program, all age-groups, including children, are covered.
Under Free Drugs Service Initiative of NHM, financial support is provided to States/UTs for provision of free essential medicines including insulin for poor and needy people including children. Furthermore, quality generic medicines including insulin are made available at affordable prices to all, under ‘Jan Aushadhi Scheme’, in collaboration with the State Governments.
Government Hospitals provide free of cost treatment. The treatment for in-patient care is also available under Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) for 10.74 crore families eligible under AB-PMJAY as per Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) database 2011.
The Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Bharti Pravin Pawar stated this in a written reply in the Lok Sabha today.