Diabetes in Mozambique: prevalence, management and healthcare challenges

The growing trend towards and deficient management of diabetes in Africa are important public-health challenges requiring surveillance. For this reason, this study aimed to assess the prevalence and awareness of diabetes in urban and rural Mozambique, and to describe its management.

In 2005, a representative sample of the national Mozambican adult population (n=2343) was evaluated, according to the STEPwise approach to chronic disease risk factor surveillance (STEPS). Twelve-hour fasting blood glucose (FBG) was measured, using fingertip capillary whole blood, to estimate the prevalence of impaired fasting glucose (IFG; FBG ≥5.6 mmol/L and less than 6.1 mmol/L) and diabetes (FBG ≥6.1 mmol/L, or treatment with insulin and/or oral blood glucose-lowering drugs). Patients' awareness and management of diabetes were assessed by questionnaire.

The prevalence of diabetes and IFG was 2.9% [95% confidence interval (95%CI): 1.8-4.0] and 2.5% (95%CI: 1.3-3.7), respectively. Diabetes was more frequent among urban dwellers (OR=2.92, 95%CI: 1.45-5.86), mostly due to urban-rural differences in age, education, body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (adjusted OR=2.27, 95%CI: 0.83-6.26). In all, 13% of those with diabetes were aware of their condition, 10.9% had undergone glycaemia determination during the previous year, and 9% were being treated with oral blood glucose-lowering drugs and 3% with insulin.

Diabetes prevalence is low in Mozambique, but most diabetic patients were neither aware of their condition nor being treated pharmacologically, thus posing serious challenges to the provision of adequate care in an already disadvantageous context.