2 yıl önce

Africans with diabetes at higher risk of Covid-19 related death - WHO

The WHO warned that Africa is set to see diabetes cases more than double to 55 million by 2045, the biggest increase across the globe.

Reuters

Poor diet and increasingly sedentary lifestyles are blamed for the high level of diabetes in Africa.

Africa’s fatality rates from coronavirus infections are significantly higher in patients with diabetes, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said in a report.

“Covid-19 is delivering a clear message: fighting the diabetes epidemic in Africa is in many ways as critical as the battle against the current pandemic,” Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa said on Thursday.

Twenty-four million people are living with diabetes today in Africa, which is also the region with the “highest number of people who do not know their diagnosis,” the WHO statement said.

“An estimated 70 percent of people with diabetes do not know they have the disease.”

Poor diet and increasingly sedentary lifestyles are blamed for the particularly high level of type two diabetes on the continent, which WHO called a “silent killer”.

Africa's vaccine drive

Only 6.6 percent of the African population is fully vaccinated against Covid, compared with about 40 percent globally.

Data from 37 countries indicates that since March 2021, over 6.5 million vaccine doses have gone to Africans with comorbidities such as diabetes, representing 14 percent of all doses administered so far.

Efforts to reach these people are increasing with half of those 6.5 million doses administered in the last couple of months, WHO said.

But Moeti underlined: “Nine months since Covid-19 vaccination campaigns began in Africa, we are still nowhere near where we need to be with protecting our most vulnerable.

“There is an urgent need to step up vaccination and other key services to people at high risk.”

The continent is expected to experience the highest increase in diabetes globally, with the number of Africans suffering from the disease predicted to rise to 55 million by 2045, an increase of 134% compared to 2021.

Some 4.2 million people die of diabetes annually, according to the international federation.

SOURCE: AA