Karachi: Pakistan urgently needs an updated nationwide diabetes survey as reliance on decade old data is increasingly obscuring the true scale of type 2 diabetes in the country, senior health experts have warned, warning that millions of cases may be going undetected amid worsening lifestyle trends.
Experts say the last population level diabetes survey, conducted in 2016–17, no longer reflects current realities in a country facing rapid urbanisation, rising obesity, low physical activity and growing consumption of unhealthy diets. Without fresh data, they argue, health planning for one of Pakistan’s fastest growing chronic diseases remains dangerously incomplete.
Prof Dr Abdul Basit, a leading diabetologist and president of the Diabetes Asia Study Group, said a new national survey was essential to reassess the true burden of diabetes but stressed that updated numbers alone would not solve the problem.
“A fresh survey is immensely important, but it must go hand in hand with serious investment in diabetes care,” Prof Basit said. “Affordability and access to medicines, strong primary care systems, trained doctors and proper diabetes registries are equally critical. Authorities need to decide priorities in consultation with all stakeholders.”
Now associated with the Indus Hospital in Karachi, Prof Basit, who also chairs the Health Research Advisory Board, said continuing to rely on decade old estimates in a rapidly changing society was no longer sustainable.
“The last national diabetes survey was conducted in 2016–17 and later reflected in the IDF Atlas in 2021,” he said. “Since then, risk factors have only worsened. Obesity is rising, physical activity remains low and dietary habits are deteriorating. In such conditions, it is very likely that the real number of people with diabetes is far higher than what we currently report.”
The World Health Organization estimates that about 34.5 million people in Pakistan are living with diabetes, but experts caution that even this figure may underestimate the true burden, particularly as doctors report increasing numbers of younger patients and more advanced complications at diagnosis.
“Without updated population based data, we are essentially planning blind,” Prof Basit said. “We cannot accurately project medicine needs, workforce requirements or prevention strategies.”
Pakistan’s last national diabetes survey was among the most comprehensive public health studies conducted in the country, involving blood sugar testing of over 10,000 adults across all provinces through trained field teams and a dedicated national network. Its methodology met international standards and was endorsed by global health bodies, providing Pakistan with its first reliable snapshot of diabetes and prediabetes.
The findings placed Pakistan among countries with the fastest growing diabetes burden globally. Since then, experts note, urban lifestyles have intensified, physical inactivity has increased further and intake of ultra processed and sugary foods has risen, while early detection and preventive services have failed to keep pace.
Prof Basit said Pakistan already possesses the technical capacity to repeat such a survey. “We have done it before and we can do it again to international standards,” he said, adding that the cost would run into tens of millions of rupees, a modest investment in public health terms but one that requires political commitment and sustained funding.
Experts also pointed to ongoing private sector data initiatives as evidence that large scale diabetes data collection is feasible. One such project, Discovering Diabetes, has reportedly gathered clinical and demographic information on nearly one million people living with diabetes across the country.
While welcoming such efforts, they stressed that fragmented datasets cannot replace a nationally coordinated survey or a unified diabetes registry linked directly to public health planning and policy decisions.
Some experts further argued that Pakistan’s pharmaceutical industry and regulators should play a more active role in supporting diabetes research, particularly as the market for diabetes medicines continues to expand.
They highlighted the Central Research Fund of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan, financed through a one percent levy on pharmaceutical company profits, which is reportedly worth billions of rupees but remains largely unused for large scale health research.
Health experts warn that unless Pakistan urgently updates its data and strengthens its diabetes care systems, the country risks being overwhelmed by preventable complications, rising healthcare costs and a growing economic burden from a disease that is already affecting millions.
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