Report seeks tax on sugary, fizzy drinks to fight diabetes

Dubai: A new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) released on Wednesday has recommended that UAE policy makers tax sugar and fizzy drinks, reduce salt in packed products and have clear food labelling to control the diabetes epidemic.

This would mean following trends of other countries in the European Union (EU) which are already following these practices. Otherwise, the report cautions, expenditure on diabetes care will weigh heavily on government budgets.

Currently, many EU countries are following this kind of taxation policy and reaping health benefits and the UAE might be compelled to follow this practice to rein in the diabetes epidemic and to fulfil its goals for the National Health Strategy 2021, the report said.

The EIU, which is the intelligence arm of the Economist group, assessed the current status and potential impact of diabetes in the GCC countries and explored ways to combat the epidemic. Following the report, the EIU conducted 18 interviews with GCC policymakers, including some representatives here in the UAE.

“The total health-care spending on diabetes by the government is expected to rise fourfold between 2010-2030, while it is only three per cent of the GDP now which is lower than the average of nine per cent in other developed countries. For stronger health outcomes policy makers are all inspired to make these sweeping changes in food regulations,” Martin Koehring, editor of the EIU report 2015, told Gulf News in an interview from London.

He added: “In Mexico where the tax on fizzy drinks has been implemented there has been a fall in national obesity figures and this might influence other policy makers too.”

Koehring pointed out what was worrying was the discrepancy between the existing data on the prevalence of the disease and the actual occurrence itself as pointed out by Weqaya, a screening and diagnosis programme for diabetes and prediabetes in consenting adults, launched by the Health Authority of Abu Dhabi (HAAD) in 2008.

The results revealed that nearly 18 per cent of the population had diabetes and nearly 26 per cent had prediabetes. However, existing health insurance data had suggested that just 5.3 per cent of adults in Abu Dhabi had diabetes. This discrepancy in statistics is worrying because those that have remained untreated are likely to have developed other health complications, making their treatment even more expensive and challenging,

Following the Weqaya results there is greater emphasis on prevention and protection from diabetes and the emphasis is on early screening and diagnosis. “These results have made policy makers think of launching more stringent regulations. The UAE imports nearly 85 per cent of its food products and it might be possible with stricter food import policies to get food stuff from countries that follow these practices.”

The International Diabetes Federation has revealed disturbing statistics on diabetes for the Mena region which indicate nearly 35 million suffer from it and nearly 46.3 per cent have diabetes but go undiagnosed.

In the GCC region it is feared that the prevalence of diabetes might reach 50 per cent of the population within the next 10 years, according to Alfons Grabosh, a health-care expert from the UAE. While 19.3 per cent of the population in the UAE has diabetes currently, the figures in Saudi Arabia are 23.1 per cent , 23.1 per cent in Kuwait and 19.8 per cent in Qatar, costing the region nearly $16.8 billion (Dh61.70 billion) in 2014, a figure which is set to rise to $24 billion by 2035, according to IDF.

Jan Van Der Goten, managing director for Janssen GCC, called for a stronger system of primary health care to make prevention, awareness, screening and diagnosis more foolproof. Koehringer added: “The government cannot just focus on strengthening the secondary and tertiary levels of health care and build big hospitals alone. The family physicians and the primary health care network need to be strengthened to make diabetes prevention and control more effective.”

Apart from tougher food legislation and strengthening of the primary health-care system in the region, the report has made other strong and sweeping recommendations such as boosting investment in health care, adopting regional practices, introducing screening for prevention, implementing a multi-sectoral approach and engaging religious leaders to disseminate a strong message on public health.