With diabetes, a potentially fatal disease, reaching epidemic proportions and ominously surging towards becoming “the world’s seventh largest killer by 2030,” the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday cautioned South Asian countries including India to take “vigorous and concerted” action to prevent and treat the disease.
The global health agency, also said governments “must” regulate the marketing of food to children as well as ensure accurate food labelling to help the consumers make decisions that can help them avoid diabetes.
“Diabetes rarely makes headlines, and yet it will be the world’s seventh largest killer by 2030 unless intense and focused efforts are made by governments, communities and individuals,” said Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia ahead of World Health Day which falls on April 7. World Health Day this year focuses on diabetes and calls for scaling up efforts to prevent, care for and detect the disease to arrest the global epidemic which is hitting the low and middle income countries the most. “Diabetes is of particular concern in region. More than one out of every four of the 3.7 million diabetes-related deaths globally occur in region, while its prevalence exacerbates difficulties in the control of major infectious diseases such as tuberculosis.