On January 11, 1922, insulin was used for the first time to treat diabetes. A century later, the treatment has become widely used and has enabled many advances. But access is still uneven around the world.
100 years ago, the first diabetic patient was treated with insulin and it is to a team of Canadian researchers at the University of Toronto that we owe this discovery. A discovery crowned in 1923: two of them, Frédéric Banting and John MacLeod, will receive the Nobel Prize for medicine for this discovery which has saved the lives of millions of diabetics around the world.
Except that access to insulin is not the same for everyone, even in so-called rich countries. If in Canada, insulin is over-the-counter and relatively inexpensive – 30 dollars a bottle or 34 euros – this is not the case in the big American neighbor where it costs more than ten times more. And millions of Americans, for lack of adequate health insurance, have to restrict their doses or come to the other side of the border for less.
In 2019, Democratic primary candidate Bernie Sanders came to campaign in Ontario to denounce this injustice: “How is that possible? 7.5 million Americans need insulin, and unbelievably a quarter of them are forced to ration! And it’s happening in the richest country in the United States. of the world !”
But the closure of the Canada-US border for 20 long months because of the Covid put an abrupt halt to this supply of insulin. Some American patients are said to continue to have their doses delivered by Post Canada, a “medical trade “ illegal. The American giant Walmart recently launched the sale of insulin under its own brand in the United States, at a discounted price. But even today, all diabetics in North America, yet on the front line in the current Covid epidemic since diabetes is an important factor of co-morbidity, therefore still do not have equal access to this necessary remedy. their survival, 100 years after its discovery in Canada
Diabetes is experiencing a very strong progression on the African continent. The number of cases could increase by 130% by 2045, a world record.
“The fight against the diabetes epidemic in Africa is as crucial as the fight against Covid-19.”
World Health Organization
Africa has 24 million people living with diabetes and that number could reach 55 million within 20 years. We are talking here mainly about type 2 diabetes, for about 90% of cases. This diabetes is linked to a poor diet, obesity and lack of physical exercise. We must therefore look at behavior: food, mobility, etc.
And this is to be linked to the rural exodus. The populations leave the countryside to look for work in the city and this upsets their “way of living” explains, Michael Brown, one of the managers of the Diabetes Center in South Africa. “On observed a very strong increase in the prevalence of diabetes in these fragile populations, he adds. There is also a westernization, where rural communities adopt western lifestyles and eating habits and abandon their cultural practices, mainly the way of eating. “
South Africa is no exception to this diabetes epidemic, it is even the country with the highest incidence rate on the continent: around 13% of the adult population is affected by diabetes. Among the possible explanations, we find the problem of rural exodus, but also unemployment, the rate of which is around 35%, very high alcohol consumption and fast food, present in every corner of town and countryside. .
Consequence: an unsuitable diet, especially among poor people, explains Margot McCumsky, director of an NGO that informs and helps diabetics. “People don’t have a lot of money and they depend on products rich in carbohydrates: bread, rice, or corn pap, as we have. here, details the expert. These are foods that make you fat. The excess carbohydrates are stored by the body for days when, for example, you run out of food. “
According to her, the government does not sufficiently measure the epidemic of diabetes in Africa: “People are often misdiagnosed, they are not tested”, she believes, adding that there is not enough public investment in awareness campaigns. “There is also a lack on the education side of learning to eat healthy, knowing what a proper portion of food is. The government should fund an organization like ours to help disseminate information.”