Healthy Skepticism Library item: 6990

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Publication type: news

Caelers D.
SA to lead war against costly diabetes drugs
Independent On-line 2006 Dec 5

Abstract:

South Africa is set to lead the way with a new drug price war on a similar scale to that which saw Aids drug costs slashed by as much as 99 percent during the past decade, as it tackles the huge threat of diabetes.

That is the commitment from national health director-general Thami Mseleku, following Monday’s release of a Diabetes Declaration and Strategy for Africa.

The declaration has been made in the face of estimates that the burden of diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa, including South Africa, is mushrooming.

The diabetes action plan for the continent came on the first day of the World Diabetes Congress which has brought about
12 000 delegates to Cape Town.
Mseleku said South Africa had proved with HIV and Aids that it was possible to drive drug prices down.

“One of the things we recognise is that it is important for us to engage with the pharmaceutical and diagnostic industries, to impress upon them the need for accessible medicines and diagnostic tools, especially for the poor.

“We’ve done it with HIV/Aids, and we can do it here (with diabetes),” he said at a press briefing.

South Africa has sketchy statistics for diabetes prevalence, and authorities said the current figure of two to three million affected people was a “gross under-estimation”.

Considering that specialists estimate as many as 80 percent of diabetics in Sub-Saharan Africa are “unknown”, that figure could be shockingly high.

Mseleku said the Diabetes Declaration was a recognition by the governments of the region that diabetes was a health priority.

“We are on the brink of an epidemic of diabetes. The toll is already devastating, and will be immeasurable (if urgent steps aren’t taken),” he said.

Professor Martin Silink, who will take over the presidency of the International Diabetes Federation from Thursday, said seven million people worldwide developed diabetes every year, with just fewer than half dying as a result.

Outgoing president Professor Pierre Lefebvre told the opening ceremony that the prestigious medical journal The Lancet had reported three weeks ago that the most common cause of death in children with diabetes was the lack of access to insulin.

Type 2 diabetes, the result of unhealthy lifestyles, was affecting people at an increasingly younger age, and this epidemic was far greater than was feared just three years ago.

In addition, said Lefebvre, it affected mainly developing countries. “It is affecting children and adolescents and there is no doubt that this is linked to obesity.

“This increase is linked to the profound changes in the lifestyles of these children and adolescents in the past 10 to 20 years,” he warned.

Type 2 diabetes used to be a problem afflicting people aged 50 to 60, but now was affecting children as young as 10 to 15.

Mseleku acknowledged that the burden of HIV and Aids often overshadowed the importance of fighting non-communicable diseases like diabetes.

“From the government’s perspective, we also have a number of other epidemics that we need to be attending to, and diabetes and heart disease are among these.”

One of the key strategies of the African Diabetes Declaration is to use all facets of the health system, including HIV and Aids workers, to include diabetes and related diseases and conditions, such as heart disease, as an integral component of the care they provide.

Mseleku said diabetes had in the past been a disease of the rich, but its move into poorer countries and communities reflected changes in diet and lifestyle.