Czech Republic: diabetic patients to reach 10% of population by 2013?

2009-09-07

The number of diabetic patients in the Czech Republic is growing rapidly, and may reach 10% of the population within four years, according to Prof. Milan Kvapil, president of the Czech Diabetes Association, quoted by Pravo.
The Czech Republic is already among the European countries with the highest number of diabetic cases per capita: the number of registered diabetic patients is currently 800,000, i.e. 8% in a population of 10 million. But the figure is rising by about 50,000 per year. In 2008, there were 56,000 new cases, including 29,000 women and 27,000 men.
The disease leads to serious complications: according to the newspaper, last year 75,500 people with diabetes were diagnosed with kidney problems, 90,000 with eye problems, 2,313 went entirely blind, more than 8,000 had one limb amputated and 22,000 died.