Diabetes falls heaviest on low and middle income countries

Diabetes is now the fourth biggest cause of death globally, with diabetes related conditions resulting in 3.8 million deaths in 2007. The incidence of diabetes is increasing worldwide at a significant rate.

There are currently 240 million people globally living with diabetes, and this is predicted to increase to 380 million by 2025 – an increase of 58 per cent. Diabetes affects countries of all income levels and a wide variety of epidemiological profiles.

The burden of diabetes falls heaviest on low and middle income countries, with 80 per cent of people currently living with diabetes living in such countries. Typically these countries are experiencing a ‘double burden’ of disease, with the increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases occurring alongside a persistent high prevalence of communicable ones.

This double burden, coupled with human resource challenges, has significant implications for the capacity of health systems to respond to diabetes and can be evidenced in the severe variations in prognosis that people living with diabetes face depending on where they live.

Given the size and scope of the Commonwealth, these global trends are also Commonwealth trends. In 2003, more than 55 million people in the Commonwealth were living with diagnosed diabetes, with an average prevalence of 6.1 per cent.

Using this data the World Health Organization has projected that by 2025 this will have doubled, with over 110 million predicted to be living with diabetes. However, beyond this Commonwealth overview there is considerable variation in prevalence and numbers affected between member states. Nauru emerges as the country with the highest global prevalence rate at 30.2 per cent, while Cameroon at 0.8 per cent has the lowest prevalence in the Commonwealth.

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Diabetes in the Commonwealth

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