Revision of the ILO Guidelines for medical examinations of seafarers

With reference to the scientific evidence it is proposed not to use urine dipstick but the highly sensitive blood test, A1C or similar highly sensitive test for early diagnose for T2DM when fishers, seafarers and other transport workers attend for their biannual fit-for duty medical examinations. The urine dipstick should still be used as a basic diagnostic tool to determine pathological changes in a patient's urine but due to low sensibility with many false negatives it cannot be used for early diagnosis of diabetes type 2.
The revision is done on request to MAHRE-Net in Feb 2021 from the International Maritime Health Association (IMHA) https://www.imha.net/, http://europeche.chil.me/ Europeche and European Transport Workers https://www.etf-europe.org/
Authors: The International Diabetes Mellitus and Hypertension Research Group A subgroup of MAHRE-Net

The urine dipstick should still be used as a basic diagnostic tool to determine pathological changes in a patient's urine but due to low sensibility with many false negatives it cannot be used for early diagnosis of diabetes type 2.

urine stix should not be used for diagnosis of diabetes, as this gives many false negatives and false diagnosis of NO diabetes, with consequense that perevention is delayed