Paid and presented by Novo Nordisk
The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) estimates that in total there are more than 1.1 million children and adolescents living with type 1 diabetes globally. The greatest rise in diabetes prevalence is projected to occur in Africa, but the continent spends the least on diabetes care as a proportion of global annual healthcare spending.
While that picture is cause for concern, some developing nations are working on improving access to care and medicine in partnership with the Changing Diabetes in Children (CDiC) programme. The partnership has been running since 2009, supporting patient education, healthcare professionals’ training and clinic improvements. The number of children with diabetes reached surpassed 29,000 in 18 countries in 2021, but the aim is to reach 100,000 by 2030.
The IDF’s estimate of 1.1 million children might be conservative. In four of the 18 countries in which the CDiC runs (Guinea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Ethiopia) more children were diagnosed with diabetes and enrolled in the programme than the IDF estimated have the disease.
Calculating and addressing the increasing burden of diabetes will require a multifaceted approach. Training healthcare professionals, educating patients, improving clinics and access to insulin are all made more possible with technologies like telemedicine and digital records. But to reach a stage where those technologies are effective, developing nations have other hurdles to climb first.