Diabetes kills three every two hours in Saudi

Diabetes kills three people every two hours in Saudi Arabia, which is classified as having the world’s third highest rate of the disease.

Around 2.5 million people suffer from diabetes in the Gulf Kingdom and the number could double to nearly five million in 2030.

Releasing estimates based on official figures, the Saudi health awareness society, a private medical group, said nearly 42 people in Saudi Arabia die of diabetes every day, an “average three persons every two hours.”

“More than 15,000 people die of diabetes in Saudi Arabia every year while the kingdom is still classified as having the world’s third highest diabetes rate,” the society’s chairman Abdul Rahman Al Qahtani said, quoted by Ajel newspaper.

He said more than a quarter of Saudis aged above 30 years are diabetic, adding that around 1.25 million people in the Kingdom could be diabetic but have not been diagnosed. “This means the diabetes rate is more than three million.”

“What is worrying is that diabetes in Saudi Arabia has started to affect people at early ages, including fat children….such conditions have not been recorded before.”