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Concerns loom over rise in diabetes as COVID-19 affects treatment, lifestyle
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Diabetes. (Shutterstock/Eviart)
T
he prevalence of diabetes has long been increasing in Indonesia, but the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak is refueling concerns that more people could develop diabetes, taking a further toll on the country’s already strained state health insurance system.
The pandemic has led to a reluctance to use health facilities, suspended health services and has led to shifts in lifestyle that experts fear will increase the risk factors for diabetes and complications prompted by diabetes.
“Throughout the pandemic, we’re seeing [diabetes] patients who hardly move around while staying at home and their conditions have gotten worse,” Health Ministry director for noncommunicable diseases Cut Putri Ariane told a media briefing on Tuesday.
Indonesian Endocrinology Association (Perkeni) chairman Ketut Suastika pointed to the country's prediabetic prevalence, which is among the highest in the world. Twenty-six percent of Indonesia’s population aged above 15 who took oral glucose tolerance tests have impaired fasting glucose tolerance and 30 percent have impaired glucose tolerance.
The figure is around two and a half times higher than the diabetes prevalence in 2018, which stood at 10.9 percent of the population aged above 15, an increase from 6.9 percent in 2013, according to the latest Basic Health Research (Riskesdas).
The International Diabetes Federation's (IDF) 2019 report ranked Indonesia at seventh with 10.7 million people aged between 20 and 79 having diabetes. It predicted the number would grow to 13.7 million in 2030 and 16.6 million in 2045.
Read also: Diabetes biggest comorbid factor in COVID-19 deaths: Task force
