Himachal Pradesh Health Minister Thakur Singh said people settled in state's remote areas are also becoming diabetic and inhabitants of the country's highest villages Hikkim and Komik in the Spiti Valley have also been diagnosed with the lifestyle disease.
Expressing concern over the fast spreading of diabetes in rural areas also, he said it was disturbing that the state, despite being agrarian and having hilly terrain, was seeing a trend of shift of diabetes base to a younger age and women as well.
He said the diabetes was spreading rapidly and tribal areas were not an exception in reporting such cases.
Delivering his inaugural address in the two-day conference on the Himachal Pradesh Research Society for the Study of Diabetes in India here, the minister said the state was committed to provide quality medicines and health services for which a number of new health institutions have been opened in the rural areas.
Hypertension Society of India president A. Murugunathan stressed upon the need to make the people aware of this disease.
--IANS
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