A professor from Tehran University of Medical Sciences Alireza Esteghamati, announced the news saying: "Iran is the 20th country to join the Dop World Program and we hope to be able to share our experiences in the field of diabetes with the world through this project."
The Diabetes Empowerment Education Program, also known as DEEP, is an educational curriculum designed to help people with pre-diabetes, diabetes, relatives, and caregivers gain a better understanding of diabetes self-care. Classes last a total of six weeks, providing participants with eight unique learning modules.
About 422 million people worldwide have diabetes, the majority living in low-and middle-income countries, and 1.6 million deaths are directly attributed to diabetes each year.
Some 11 percent of Iranians above 25 years old, accounting for 5 million people, are suffering from diabetes, and 18 percent of the population are pre-diabetic, health ministry official Alireza Mahdavi said in November 2019.
In Iran, 25 percent of people are not aware of their diabetes, which is 50 percent in the world; in West Asia and North Africa, 60 percent of people are unaware of their diabetes.
Both the number of cases and the prevalence of diabetes have been steadily increasing over the past few decades. As it is expected that by 2030, 578 million people will develop diabetes, and the number of patients may exceed 700 million by 2045.
In 2019, 4.2 million people died of diabetes. And now, 50 percent of coronavirus patients were diabetic.
HJ/5084177