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’Diabetes deaths to rise by 80pc in ten years’
2006-03-08 07:51:55
By Pascal Shija
Deaths due to diabetes that currently affects almost 200 million people worldwide will increase by as much as 80 per cent in some regions over the next ten years, the World Health Organisation has warned.
Participants at a recent two-day National Diabetes Programme workshop were informed that at present six people die of diabetes each minute.
A non-communicable-disease expert, Dr Eva Njenga, said it is estimated that over three million deaths can be attributed to diabetes each year.
Writing in the Diabetes Focus, the official publication of the Kenya Diabetes Association, she quotes the President of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), Professor Pierre Lefebvre as saying that the dramatic rise in diabetes prevalence mainly in low and middle income countries is of particular concern.
IDF estimates that the number of people, suffering from diabetes, will increase to 333 million by year 2025.
Dr Njenga also quotes a recent WHO report, Preventing Chronic Diseases: A Vital Investment State, saying that about 35 million people die each year as a result of invisible global epidemic of chronic diseases.
In Africa, WHO predicts that deaths from diabetes will increase by over 40 per cent in the next ten years.
The WHO report cites India as the nation host to the largest diabetes population in the world with an estimated 35 million people, amounting to 8 per cent of its adult population.
WHO predicts that deaths from diabetes in India will increase by 35 per cent over the next ten years.
The report adds: In China, the number of people with Type 2 diabetes is likely to reach 50 million people within the next 25 years.
Deaths from diabetes will increase by 8 per cent in America and by 50 per cent in the Western Pacific and Eastern Mediterranean regions.
Dr Njenga says that in its common form, Type 2 diabetes is caused by a number of preventable risk factors such as unhealthy diet and physical inactivity.
Worldwide, one billion people are overweight or obese.
They are at increased risk of weight-related non-communicable diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, heart diseases and some form of cancer.
She quotes the President-elect of IDF, Professor Martin Silink, as saying: ’Even more worrying is the increasing rate of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents, and the related appearance of Type 2 diabetes in the young.’
Dr Njenga also quotes Professor Lefebvre as saying that chronic diseases cannot be ignored nor given lower priority.
’Every country, regardless of its levels of resources, can contribute to reducing the burden of chronic diseases through prevention and control.’
But if nations do not take action to defuse the increase of people with diabetes in the world the total direct healthcare expenditure on diabetes worldwide will be between USD213 billion and USD396 billion in 2025.
This would mean that the proportion of the world’s healthcare budget spent on diabetes care in 2025 will be between 7 to 13 per cent.
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