Australia has highest rates of type 1 diabetes among children

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDAug 5 2010

Australia ranks the highest among 10 OECD countries when it comes to rate of type 1 diabetes among children, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). The OECD or consists of 32 countries.

The new study by the AIHW by revealed on Thursday that at least two Australian children up to 14 years old are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes each day. It comes to a total of 8,000 new cases of type 1 diabetes among Australian children between 2000 and 2008. There has been an alarming rise says the study. While rates of the disease were 19 per 100,000 population in 2000, they stand at 24 new cases per100,000 population in 2004 - an average rate of 6.2 percent a year. The incidence rate, however, did not change significantly between 2005 and 2008. More boys aged 0-4 years than girls of the same age had Type 1 diabetes. There were no differences between boys and girls in the older age groups the study found.

At present Australia's National Diabetes Register counts 21,300 people with type 1 diabetes diagnosed from 1999 to 2008. Almost 9,000 children aged 0-14 years on the NDR have type 1 diabetes.

Anne-Marie Waters of the AIHW's National Centre for Monitoring Diabetes says, “It definitely creates a burden on the healthcare system, it also creates a burden for the children and their families because of the treatment they need to have, it's a life-long condition so they need to have it for the rest of their lives.”

Tasmania has the highest rate of new cases, followed by Queensland, WA and NSW. The Northern Territory had the lowest rate reported.