The number of people living with diabetes is expected to grow over 100 per cent in Africa with the prevalence of the disease in Nigeria projected to rise to eight million by 2045.
This is according to a diabetes care report published by The Access to Medicine Foundation (ATMF), a Netherlands-based non-profit organisation, that stimulates and guides pharmaceutical companies to do more for people living in low and middle-income countries.
The reports is titled: “REPORT ON DIABETES CARE: What are pharma companies doing to expand access to insulin – and how can efforts be scaled up?”, released October 2022.
It added that the current estimate of 3.5 million living with the disease in Nigeria is probably understated due to poor diagnosis in many African countries.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that diabetes mellitus, commonly known as diabetes, is a chronic condition in which the body is unable to produce or properly use insulin.
Experts say insulin is an essential hormone that helps regulate blood glucose levels and when diabetes is left untreated, persistent high blood glucose levels cause devastating effects in body organs, including cardiovascular disease, kidney failure and nerve damage.
Untreated or poorly controlled diabetes can lead to premature death in some cases and disabling conditions in others, including lower-limb amputations and partial or complete vision loss.
The most common types of diabetes are known as type 1 and type 2 diabetes, with other types including gestational diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes often has its onset during childhood or young adulthood. Because of the body’s non-existent or very limited capacity to produce insulin, people living with type 1 diabetes need daily injections of insulin to survive.
Type 2 diabetes is the most common type of the disease; it is generally diagnosed in adulthood, although onset in young people has been increasing in the past decades.
Dr Jayasree Iyer, the Chief Executive Officer of ATMF, analysing the report, said it also highlighted the magnitude of cost of disease burden and difficulty in access to treatment in Nigeria and other low and middle income countries.
“The burden of treatment of diabetes remains significantly greater in Nigeria and other low to medium-income countries (LMICs).
“According to the report, the number of people with diabetes worldwide is expected to reach 570 million by 2030, and 700 million by 2045, rising most rapidly LMICs as the burden of non-communicable diseases grows”.
