World Diabetes Day: South African health leaders urge early action to detect the disease

As World Diabetes Day is marked across the globe, health leaders in South Africa have urged citizens to take early action to detect the chronic medical disease. At an event in Tembisa near Johannesburg on Friday, people had themselves checked for the metabolic condition, high blood pressure and other related illnesses. And to receive information on prevention and management. Today is an event for World Diabetes Day where we check our health. It's very important as people to look after ourselves and how our health is improving so you can be safe. Diabetes has taken a lot of lives because of the ignorance. So to the people at home, it's important to know your blood pressure. The statistics are clear. Type 2 diabetes affects about 10% of the adult population, one in every nine, accounting for more than 6% of all recorded natural deaths in 2024. In South Africa, number one killer used to be HIV. It has now changed. Number one killer is diabetes. All the figures are showing that. Diabetes is number one killer. It's just like that. It's not that we are the highest in the world, especially because among black people, these diseases are just new. Whites used to suffer these diseases for ages, the non-communicable diseases. Blacks are quite recent, but it has overtaken HIV-AIDS. That's number one issue. It's estimated that up to two-thirds of South Africans with diabetes remain undiagnosed. Doctors say the surge in the disease cannot be blamed on lifestyle choices alone and say there's a need for more awareness of contributing factors. People living with diabetes need to receive education. This is the cornerstone of diabetes management. But in our facility, because of the gaps in the health system, there is almost no education that is delivered to people with diabetes. As a result, they are disempowered and they are not able to play the role that they should play when it comes to the management of their care. So what we are saying to government is that let's go back to the basics. We need to empower people with diabetes with the right information. We need to ensure that medications are available. Other contributing factors include increasing obesity, physical inactivity, unhealthy diets and high consumption of sugary drinks and processed foods. The South African Medical Association says there's also a need to strengthen the management of chronic diseases at the primary health care level.