World Diabetes Day: Innaya, a 3-year-old from Reunion Island, has Type-1 diabetes

Innaya was diagnosed a month before she turned 2. She has type 1 diabetes and is dependent on daily insulin: “My daughter has to change her catheter every 3 days and she has to change her sensor every 10 days which is used to calculate her blood sugar. It’s really an illness invisible to the naked eye, but which requires a lot of monitoring” , emphasizes his mother.

“People sometimes associate this disease directly with sugar, etc., whereas this is not often the case. This disease is the daily life of many people. At the beginning, it is very difficult, because you have to know how to manage the hypo “under”, hyper “above”. We also have to manage the catheter which can fall if she moves or if she sweats.

Like Innaya, 83,400 Reunion Islanders were treated for their diabetes in 2021. This number also underestimates the real situation on our island.

13% of the adult population and 33% of people aged 65 and over are also affected by this disease in Reunion. Our Region is the most affected by diabetes in France with twice as many patients treated compared to the national level.

The number of patients affected increased by 3% per year between 2015 and 2021.