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CAPE TOWN - The global diabetes epidemic is projected to affect 7 per cent of the world's adult population by 2025 as developing countries embrace bad health habits associated with affluence, say medical experts.
The stark picture painted by the rapid worldwide spread of the disease - expected
to affect 380 million people in 20 years - was illustrated by a new "Diabetes Atlas", launched at the World Diabetes Congress in Cape Town.
"This is an epidemic that seems to have crept up on people," said Martin Silink, incoming president of the International Diabetes Federation.
"The enormity of the epidemic has suddenly become apparent to everyone."
Experts say diabetes kills as many people as HIV/Aids and is emerging as one of the chief public health challenges of the 21st century, especially in developing nations.
The federation estimates that diabetes already affects 246 million across the world, up from just 30 million two decades ago. It is blamed for the deaths of about 3.8 million people each year, mostly through complications such as strokes and heart attacks.
Every year, 7 million people are afflicted with diabetes, most of them in developing countries where economic progress is bringing with it "lifestyle diseases" such as obesity, once mostly found in rich countries.
Experts say public health messages on diet and exercise - something which has not resonated in rich Western countries - are still the single most important tool to fight the epidemic.
The Diabetes Atlas showed that type 2, or adult-onset diabetes, is now spreading quickest in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East.
The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, for example, have diabetes prevalence rates of between 16 and 20 per cent of their adult populations.
The small South Pacific nation of Nauru has the world's highest prevalence at more than 30 per cent, and India and China have the greatest numbers of diabetics at about 40 million apiece.
Jonathan Shaw, of the International Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, said projections showed diabetes spreading most quickly in developing countries through to 2025.
Diabetes rates are expected to double in South America and increase by 80 per cent in Africa and 56 per cent in the Indian sub-continent.
"This is not just a health issue, this is not just a social welfare issue, this is an economic issue."
He said many of the most severely affected countries were poorly placed to cope with rising health costs associated with diabetes care.
- REUTERS