People suffering from diabetes have a higher risk of getting and developing a severe form of Covid-19. At the same time, the Covid-19 pandemic has increased the risk of developing diabetes in the long run, as lockdowns exacerbated another widespread disease: overweight. A further rise in the prevalence of diabetes could add 25 million people suffering from diabetes worldwide, causing 45 billion euro of direct health costs per year.
While the world is struggling to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of people suffering from diabetes has kept increasing rather unnoticed. According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) meanwhile around 537 million people live with diabetes, that is every 10th adult aged between 20 and 79 years. 20 years ago, the prevalence in this age group was merely 4.6% with the total number of people having diabetes amounting to 151 million.