Here is how technology is helping the fight against diabetes in South Africa

According to knowledge from  the International Diabetes Federation, diabetes brought about an estimated 96,000 deaths in South Africa in 2021. Additionally, the illness impacts 1 in 9 grownup South Africans, with 45.4% of individuals dwelling with the illness in the nation undiagnosed.

Over the final years, quite a few healthtech firms in the nation have put merchandise on the market which search to alleviate the nation’s healthcare system to sort out the illness.

In February, Nasdaq-listed world healthtech agency Dexcom launched its flagship steady glucose monitoring system, the Dexcom G7, in South Africa. Dexcom claims that the low-profile, all-in-one wearable warms up quicker than another CGM on the market, sending real-time glucose readings routinely to a suitable good gadget or receiver with out utilizing painful finger sticks or scanning.

“The next-generation Dexcom G7 CGM System empowers users and helps simplify diabetes management with our smallest, most intuitive real-time CGM. Bringing our technology to more people around the world continues to be a top priority and we are thrilled that the diabetes community in South Africa will be amongst the first, outside of Europe, to experience the benefits of G7,” mentioned Alex Moussa, Senior Vice President and General  Manager EMEA, Dexcom.

Another welcome technological development in the fight against diabetes is the launch of the partnership between worldwide healthtech agency Olink and a Cape Town-based protein processing facility to analysis quite a few ailments together with diabetes.

The facility, D-CYPHR, allows entry to proteomics and metabolomics applied sciences and experience. It helps advanced scientific and organic analysis that is not attainable elsewhere in this area.

“One of the objectives of the DIPLOMICS programme is to enable and improve access to high-calibre ‘omics technologies and expertise. Through the D-CYPHR laboratory, we are excited about the introduction of the Olink technology, which will dramatically improve the quality and throughput of advanced proteomics research in South Africa,” mentioned Dr Tim Newman, Program Manager for DIPLOMICS.

Accessibility downside nonetheless persists

Despite the prevalence of applied sciences resembling Dexcom’s G7, they’re solely accessible to people who’ve medical insurance plans.

According to a report by GetSavvi well being, out of South Africa’s inhabitants of over 54 million folks, solely 17.4% are lined by a South African medical scheme. This implies that solely 9.5 million South Africans have entry to personal medical care whereas greater than 44 million don’t.

This presents a significant problem as with diabetes, the longer it stays undiagnosed, the tougher will probably be to fight it. When diabetes is undetected or inadequately handled, folks with diabetes are liable to severe and life-threatening issues, resembling coronary heart assault, stroke, kidney failure, blindness and lower-limb amputation.

According to a healthcare skilled who spoke to TechCabal on situation of anonymity, to efficiently fight the diabetes warfare in South Africa utilizing technology, there must be a consideration to construct merchandise past simply these which handle the situation.

“The main problem in South Africa is that people are not aware that they do have diabetes. They only find out when it’s too late. So as much as technology in managing the disease is a welcome development, it has to extend to beyond that. There should be innovations which notify people that they have the condition before it’s too late,” the  supply mentioned.

This is a problem, particularly for healthtech startups in South Africa. Healthcare fairness will solely be achieved if all people who want healthcare are conscious that they want it and afterwards, have unmitigated entry to it.

As diabetes continues to severely have an effect on the South African inhabitants, technology has thus far performed a major function in the fight against the illness however there is nonetheless a lot extra to be achieved in the fight.