A report by the IDF diabetes atlas, titled, ‘Diabetes the Ever Growing Problem’ has revealed that about 6.7 million deaths recorded globally are linked to Diabetes Mellitus.
This was even as experts called for the introduction of a specific tax on all sugar-sweetened beverages and not only carbonated drinks.
While making a presentation at a public lecture hosted by the National Action on Sugar Reduction on Tuesday, the President, Diabetic Foot Nigeria Initiative Nigeria Representative, Mrs. Felicia Anumah, said the prevalence of diabetes in Nigeria ranged between 0.6 and 15 per cent.
Anumah, who is also a Professor of Medicine and Endocrinology at the University of Abuja quoted the report, saying about 537 million adults across the world were currently living with the disease out of which 24 million emerged from Africa.
She noted that despite the advanced treatment available for diabetes, the outcome was variable partly due to insufficient empowerment of persons suffering from diabetes.
“Many people with diabetes in Nigeria have serious unmet needs in their diabetes care; education and empowerment, cost of medicines and blood sugar monitoring devices, screening for complications and treating complications.
“The cost of treating diabetes in one year without complications is about (N300-500,000 or $ 1000), and over (N1,500,000 or $3000) when complications develop, such as diabetic foot and much more with kidney failure. The presence of diabetes deepens poverty and hunger for the individual and the family,” she said.
She further stressed the need policymakers, NGOs, and all Nigerians to work together to prevent and reduce the impact of diabetes in Nigeria.
“The cheap option that we have is prevention,” she added.
A representative of the World Bank, Mr. Olumide Okunola, in his presentation on Taxing Sugar-Sweetened Beverages in Nigeria described SSBs as non-alcoholic beverages containing added caloric sweeteners, such as sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup, or fruit juice concentrates.
He said tax instruments such as excise tax, Import tax Value Added Tax could be applied to them
Okunola opined that well-designed SSB tax could incentivise product reformulation to reduce volume or sugar content, portfolio renovation to lower share of high-sugar, reduce marketing of high-sugar beverages, reduce high-sugar product sizes and introduce new (no- or low-sugar) products.
He, however, commended the recent move by the Federal Government to tax carbonated drinks which would be among the revenue-raising measures.
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