China spends US$50 billion treating diabetes and related diseases every year, which is about 13% of the total national healthcare expenditures, according to a report released in conjunction with World Diabetes Day which fell on 14 November.
80% of the diabetes cost is spent on treating its complications.
The report, issued by industry organisation R&D-based Pharmaceutical Association Committee, or RDPAC, which represents major international drug companies in China, cites research based on diabetes cost in a Chinese province it did not identify. It shows that 84% of the cost for treating the disease is spent on hospitalisation and surgery while only 6.7% is for insulin.
China has the most cases of diabetes and of deaths from the disease in the world and the epidemic is getting worse. China’s diabetic population is expected to grow from the current 110 million to 150 million by 2040 unless the country takes urgent action to reduce lifestyle-related risk factors such as unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity, the WHO says.
About 10% of Chinese adults live with diabetes, and nearly half of all adults are prediabetic, a condition in which blood glucose levels are higher than normal, according to the WHO. One problem is that most patients don’t know they are diabetic. Only 35% of the Chinese diabetics are receiving treatment for their condition, compared with 63% in the US and 50% in Japan.
Type 2 diabetes, which is often linked to obesity and lifestyle factors such as lack of exercise, make up 90% of cases in China, with Type 1, or juvenile, diabetes, a distant second, consistent with patterns elsewhere.
Less than 13% of all diabetics in China have their blood glucose controlled. Half of the patients stop the use of insulin within three months and only one third of them adhere to the treatment after a year, said Luo Tianhong, head of medical affairs of Sanofi China.
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