The number of diabetes patients has soared alarmingly across South Asia, even as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic continues to have severe psychological and economic effects through the region, experts and international bodies report.

Pakistan, ranked fourth in terms of diabetes prevalence in 2019, has surpassed the US over the past two years, according to data by the International Federation of Diabetes (IDF).

With one in four adults living with diabetes, Pakistan currently has the third-highest diabetes prevalence in the world, says the 10th edition of the IDF Diabetes Atlas, scheduled for release on Dec. 6, according to a statement by the federation.

It puts the number of diabetics in the South Asian country at roughly 33 million, compared to 19.4 million in 2019. In the US, the number of diabetics stands at 32 million in a population of over 330 million.

According to diabetologist Abdul Basit, a member of the IDF and head of the Baqai Institute of Diabetology and Endocrinology (BIDE) in Karachi, this rise of 13.6 million patients, accounting for an increase of over 70% within the last two years is "extremely alarming."

Ahead of World Diabetes Day on Nov.14, the IDF released new figures showing that 537 million adults are now living with diabetes worldwide -- a rise of 16% (74 million) since the previous IDF estimates in 2019.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Dr. Basit said that apart from those already suffering from the disease, another 33 million in Pakistan were grappling with borderline diabetes.

If immediate steps are not taken to contain this lifestyle disease, he warned, the number of diabetics in the country could double "soon."

Annually, nearly 200,000 people in Pakistan lose their feet due to ulcers caused by diabetes, while some 500,000 diabetics do not have access to care for the disease, the Diabetic Association of Pakistan (DAP) reported in a recent study.

Apart from amputations, which are preventable if necessary care is made available to the patients at an early stage, Basit noted, diabetes is one of the key causes of the rising cardiovascular illness in South Asia, including Pakistan.

It was responsible for an estimated cost of $966 billion in global health expenditure in 2021. This represents a 316% increase over 15 years, the IDF Atlas said.

Excluding mortality risks associated with the coronavirus, it added, approximately 6.7 million adults are estimated to have died as a result of diabetes or related complications in 2021. At 12.2%, this represents more than one in ten annual global deaths.

More policy steps needed in India

Sanjay Bhadada, a senior endocrinologist in northern India, told Anadolu Agency that the number of diabetes cases in his country was also rising at a substantial pace.

"In 2018, we conducted a study at our institute in which we found that other than diabetes, we're also observing an increase in the prediabetic cases," said Dr. Bhadada, who also heads the Department of Endocrinology at the federal government-run Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh city.

"Several reasons are responsible for the high burden of diabetes in the country, including sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy diet habits," he said noting that Indians are "predisposed" to diabetes.

He said the number of diabetes cases would rise unless more steps at the policy level are taken. "This is happening now at the individual level ... but now more needs to be done at the policy level."

Diabetes in India is a major and growing problem. As of 2019, the country had registered 77 million patients -- second only to China (116.4 million), according to the IDF 2019 Diabetes Atlas.

The report projected India as having among the largest numbers of diabetic adults aged 20–79 years by 2030, though the country aims to halt this rise by 2025.

Fast food fuels diabetes in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, many key factors have resulted in a rise -- albeit less severe -- in diabetic patient numbers, according to experts.

Nearly 8.5 million Bangladeshi nationals are currently suffering from the disease, up from around 8.3 million in the previous year, according to Diabetic Association of Bangladesh (DAB). In 2019, the Diabetes Atlas ranked the country 10th in the world.

"Every day, many people in Bangladesh become diabetic," Dr. AK Azad Khan, the president of the DAB, told Anadolu Agency, citing increasing weight problems in the population amid changing food habits and lifestyles.

Underlining a lack of social awareness, he added that a "huge number of Bangladeshis" did not have an adequate understanding of the disease and came for treatment at a late stage.

A massive addiction to fast food culture, especially in children, could also worsen the diabetes situation in the country of 170 million people to a "very dangerous" level in the near future, he said.

According to Khan, "lucrative advertisements of fast-food and soft drinks of different brands are very common near educational institutions in Bangladesh," prompting students to prefer unhealthy fast-food. "It must be controlled," he said.

Pandemic adds woes

Diabetes has caused some 400,000 deaths in Pakistan this year, the DAP said.

Dr. Basit pointed to the coronavirus pandemic as one of the key factors in the recent diabetes surge in Pakistan, which he said involved multiple factors related to the pandemic, included mental disorder and psychological effects.

"The pandemic changed the global life. People lost jobs, their economies declined, in addition to a halt in physical activities. This all together added to an increase in mental disorders and psychological issues, eventually leading to a surge in diabetes," he maintained.

"Another reason for the surge is more diagnoses over the past two years," Basit said, explaining that most hospitalized coronavirus patients and victims were also diabetic.

Until 2019, he went on to say, the estimated number of undiagnosed diabetics in Pakistan was 50%, which in 2021 is 25% due to more diagnoses.

Echoing Basit's views, Dr. Bhadada said that the widespread use of steroids in treatments of even mild COVID-19, increased the risk of diabetes.

"Even for mild symptoms, too many steroids are being used. When such medication is used too much, this carries the risk of diabetes," he said.

"Lack of physical activities is also a problem. People have to stayed indoors, so that also halted physical activities," said Bhadada./aa

A bone workshop and an oil lamps shop have been unearthed in an ancient city in western Turkey, according to an archaeologist working on the site.

The excavations in Aizanoi, which is home to the best-preserved Zeus Temple in Anatolia and is also called the "Second Ephesus," are being carried out by the Kutahya Museum Directorate.

Gokhan Coskun, the excavation coordinator from Kutahya Dumlupinar University, told Anadolu Agency that they are working in areas that have never been excavated before.

Coskun said they carried out work in two different wings of the agora (a public open space used for assemblies and markets in ancient Greece), and reached important findings that will shed light on trade and social life of the ancient city.

Underlining that they were able to identify two of the uncovered shops, he said thousands of bone fragments were found inside one of the stores. Some were unprocessed and it seems they were used as raw materials, he added.

“As far as we understand from this, there was a local bone workshop in Aizanoi during the Roman period, and located in the agora. It served as both a workshop and a sales place. Among the processed bone artifacts were mostly women's hairpins and spoons,” Coskun said.

He went on to say that the second shop was an oil lamp shop as they encountered many intact and broken oil lamps – lighting tools of the ancient period.

With a history dating back to 5,000 years, Aizanoi, situated 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the Kutahya city center, was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List in 2012./aa

Lebanese priest Mansour Labaki, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a French court in absentia for sexually abusing three girls in France, is estimated to have sexually abused 50 people in France and twice that number in Lebanon, a French lawyer said.

The Caen Criminal Court in western France convicted on Nov. 8 the 81-year-old priest for sexually abusing the girls in a dormitory he opened and managed for Lebanese orphans in Douvres-la-Delivrande between 1991 and 1998.

A case was filed in April 2013 by one of the victims who was sexually assaulted at the age of 13.

Labaki has stayed in Lebanon since then, and never attended the hearings. He does not have the right to appeal the decision, and will be imprisoned if he enters France.

“I’m afraid as long as the Lebanese government does not hand over Labaki, France has no chance of sending him to prison,” Solange Douminic, who has been the victim's lawyer since 2013 and one of the main lawyers of the case, told Anadolu Agency.

"He never came (to court) because he knew he would be arrested," the lawyer said, adding that it is believed he sexually abused or raped many more.

"We were able to count that 50 people were subjected to sexual abuse or rape as part of the investigation (in France)," Douminic said. "We can easily imagine that this number is double in Lebanon."

Earlier, Labaki had denied all accusations against him, calling them a conspiracy.

An international arrest warrant was issued against him by the Interpol in 2016. No action, however, was taken against him by Lebanon.

Celeste Akiki, Labaki's nephew and one of three victims in question, said in a previous statement that her uncle has strong links with religious authorities, which is why he remains unharmed in Lebanon./aa

Former detainees protested Friday in northern Syria to demand the release of prisoners who are in the dungeons of the Assad regime.

Many women, who were released after being detained by Bashar al-Assad forces, gathered in front of the Bab al-Hawa Border Crossing in Idlib province.

The women called on the international community to provide the necessary support to the former detainees so that they can overcome hardships.

They carried banners that read: "Rescue surviving detainees", "Freedom for detainees", "I want my mother" and " It is a social obligation to support female prisoners who are freed from the regime dungeons.”

Saliha Um Abdo urged the international community to save civilians who are in regime prisons.

Maryam al-Hamad from Damascus, whose three children are still being held in dungeons, said there are hundreds of thousands of civilians still waiting to be released, and that demonstrators have gathered to make their voices heard.

"We want all mothers to reunite with their children," she said.

At least 500,000 people, including women, are currently languishing in Assad prisons and detention centers, according to opposition sources.

Syria has been mired in a vicious civil war since early 2011 when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

In the past decade, around half a million people have been killed and more than 12 million had to flee their homes./aa

The UN Human Rights Office on Friday expressed concern after police in Belgrade this week stepped in to protect a mural of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic painted on a building in the city center of the Serbian capital.

"The mural in Belgrade is not an isolated incident," Liz Throssell, spokeswoman for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said at a UN press conference in Geneva.

"Posters, graffiti, other materials and statements praising war criminals are found in other parts of Serbia, as well as in various towns in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and elsewhere in the region. "

Symbols glorifying convicted war criminals should have no place in the public space, said Throssell.

Such symbols are concerning given the recent rise in hate speech and denial of genocide and other atrocity crimes in the Western Balkans – "developments that highlight the failure to address the past."

The UN rights office official said the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina is "particularly worrying," where such trends are deepening divisions.

"We call on the authorities in the region to abide by their international human rights obligations to ensure the rights to truth, justice, and reparation, as well as to adopt measures to prevent recurrence and to promote further reconciliation efforts," said Throssell.

The rights office called on the authorities to condemn and refrain from all forms of hate speech and incitement to violence and to ensure the perpetrators of such acts are held accountable.

Mladic was once Europe's most wanted man after his role in the 1992-1995 Bosnian War.

He was the commander of the Army of Republika Srpska, established in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the beginning of the country's civil war amid the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Mladic and the forces under his command were linked to the genocide committed in Bosnia, particularly in Srebrenica, Europe's worst atrocity since the World War II, after Serb forces overran an enclave that was supposed to be under the protection of UN peacekeepers.

After the end of the war with the 1995 Dayton Accords, Mladic became a fugitive for more than a decade./aa

A record of 4.43 million people in the US quit their jobs in September, according to figures released by the Labor Department on Friday.

While the number of Americans quitting their jobs came over 4 million for the third consecutive month, the latest figure is a 3.7% increase from almost 4.27 million in August.

Job openings in the US fell 191,000 from the previous month to 10.4 million in September, the Labor Department's survey showed.

While the market expectation for job openings was 10.3 million, the previous figure was around 10.6 million in August.

Total hires increased to 6.46 million in September, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS).

"Hires and total separations were little changed at 6.5 million and 6.2 million, respectively. Within separations, the quits level and rate increased to a series high of 4.4 million and 3%, respectively," the Labor Department said in a statement.

Job openings declined the most in state and local government education, by 114,000, but healthcare and social assistance saw the highest gains in openings, by 141,000.

The survey measures job vacancies by collecting data from employers about employment, job openings, hiring, and separations.


JOLTS considers job openings as all positions that are open, or not filled, on the last business day of the month that the survey is done./aa