PAKISTAN’S struggle with diabetes, predominantly the type 2 variety, has reached alarming levels. Experts warn that over 3.4m people here live with diabetic foot — a condition that can lead to severe ulcers or amputations — while millions more face the disease’s far-reaching consequences: heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, blindness and disability. The International Diabetes Federation reports that even after adjusting for age differences across countries, Pakistani adults face the highest diabetes rates in the world. This makes it nothing short of a national emergency. The opening of a multidisciplinary facility at Karachi’s Baqai Institute of Diabetology and Endocrinology offers a glimpse of what comprehensive care should look like: cardiac, neurology, nephrology and ophthalmology clinics working in sync to treat both the disease and its complications. Such centres, however, remain rare in a country where many patients struggle to access even basic screening.

Diabetes may be relentless, but it is not inevitable. Prevention is key and must begin at home and in our daily routines: choosing balanced meals over sugary indulgences, making space for physical activity and refusing to ignore early symptoms. Small, consistent habits can delay or even prevent the onset of the disease. Beyond our homes, healthier living must be encouraged in schools, workplaces and public spaces. Children should grow up seeing playgrounds in use, not locked up; office culture should make room for movement; and shop shelves should carry clear, honest food labelling. Countries that normalise wellness make it harder for disease to gain ground. Of course, no grassroots effort can succeed without the state’s steadying hand. Pakistan needs a national diabetes control plan that funds preventive screening, trains healthcare providers to catch the disease early and reins in the sugar industry through taxation and labelling laws. Unchecked, diabetes will continue to claim lives and drain resources. Confronted head-on, it can be managed — and many of its worst consequences prevented. The choice is ours.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2025