Diabetes is now South Africa’s (SA) leading recorded cause of death, with Statistics SA reporting more than 27 000 deaths linked to the disease in 2023.
Doctors say lifestyle factors are driving the crisis.
Many cases remain undiagnosed.
Durban-based Doctor Preeti Ramlachan says early detection and lifestyle changes can reduce the risk of serious complications.
Ramlachan says, “When we look at diabetes as coming up as the latest incidence of a major cause of death and mortality in SA, it belongs to the group of silent disease processes. Diabetes, hypertension, all start to grow there quietly without people knowing about it. And herein lies the difficulty with diabetes, hypertension, and other killers which are silent, is that the patient or the person will present late, and that late presentation is where our difficulty lies.”
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