TEHRAN- Iran will start producing insulin by late 2019, said the managing director of Novo Nordisk Pars Company. 

According to IRIB, Dr. Qobad Shahbazi further announced that the factory for production of insulin is ready to work and all the required equipment are imported. 
The factory’s construction started in 2005 in Savojbolagh County, Alborz Province. 

Shahbazi made the remarks on Monday on the sidelines of a conference called “Tehran, the Capital of Changing Diabetes”. 

Projects to address diabetes’ prevalence in Tehran

Over the conference, an official with Tehran Municipality said “Tehran, the Capital of Changing Diabetes” is a new project that is expected to be implemented over the next three years. 

Zeinab Nasiri, the director of Health Department at Tehran Municipality added that the project is aimed at establishing urban areas and facilities that fit the needs of Diabetic patients.   

According to Nasiri, the prevalence of diabetes is 11% in the country, but it averages 13% in Tehran. 

“The urban life style in metropolises like Tehran heightens the risk of diabetes, so we must make changes in many areas including the diet and exercise patterns,” she further remarked. 

“The Municipality is aiming to give people more walking areas with changing the urban design so that the city becomes more pedestrian-oriented rather than car oriented,” she said.   

 the prevalence of diabetes is 11% in the country, but it averages 13% in Tehran. 
“In this project, 352 Social Groups cooperated with 352 groups of volunteer doctors in the field of diabetes, so that proper facilities are set up across the city where people are provided with medical care as well as educational and preventive programs,” added Nasiri. 

“Diabeto”, an online application

According to Nasiri, Setting up an online application called “Diabeto” is another purpose in this project. 

The application will introduce all available walking areas, sports centers as well as screening and medical centers for people who suffer diabetes or want to prevent it, she said. 

According to Dr. Abdolreza Maadi, the director of “Diabeto” project, the application will be available by the end of the Iranian month of Farvardin (April 22). 

In mid-November 2018, the Health Ministry’s director for non-communicable diseases said that among Iranians over the age of 25, 11 percent suffer from diabetes type 2 and 18 percent are pre-diabetic.

Afshin Ostovar also announced that diabetes has direct and indirect costs for Iran to the tune of $4 billion per year.

Alireza Mahdavi, the director of National Program for Prevention and Control of Diabetes, also said that annually one percent is added to the population of diabetics in the country.

According to the World Health Organization, the number of people with diabetes has risen from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014. In 2015, diabetes was the direct cause of 1.6 million deaths and in 2012 high blood glucose was the cause of another 2.2 million deaths.

SJ/MG