Diabetes: Africa’s silent killer
Diabetes prevalence has been rising more rapidly in middle- and low-income countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
CAPE TOWN, November 15 (ANA) – Nineteen million adults aged between 20 and 70 are living with diabetes in Africa, according to a 2019 report by the International Diabetes Federation.
This figure is estimated to increase to 47 million by the year 2045.
About 422 million people worldwide have diabetes, four times more than 40 years ago, and the number is expected to continue to rise.
Diabetes prevalence has been rising more rapidly in middle- and low-income countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
November 14, which has been marked as World Diabetes Day, had this year’s theme as “Access to Diabetes Care”.
Millions of Africans continue to suffer because of a lack of access to lifesaving diabetes treatment, and with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, all focus has moved to providing Africa with Covid-19 vaccines despite a huge divide in vaccine distribution across the continent.
In 2020, WHO found that 18.3% of Covid-19 deaths in the African region were among people with diabetes, one of the conditions that global studies have found to increase the risk of severe illness and death among patients infected with the virus.
WHO estimates that in 2019, diabetes was the ninth leading cause of death, with an estimated 1.5 million deaths directly caused by diabetes.
On November 14, 1921, Dr Frederick Banting, a Canadian surgeon, and Charles Best, a medical student, presented research which led to the successful use of insulin.
The breakthrough research took place at the University of Toronto, where Banting and Best successfully isolated insulin from dogs, produced diabetes symptoms in the animals and then provided insulin injections that produced normal blood glucose levels, according to UMass Chan Medical School.
One hundred years on, an estimated 70 million people with diabetes who need insulin cannot access or afford it.
– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Yaron Blecher
