There are virtually no epidemiological studies from India assessing the level of awareness of diabetes in the whole population.

According to latest figures of the World Diabetes Foundation, the number of people with diabetes in India is expected to go up to 80 million by the year 2030 from the present figure of 32 million.

Diabetes is rapidly emerging as a major public health problem in urban areas of developing countries like India, and therefore, urgent steps are needed to focus attention on the consequences of improperly treated diabetes, Dr. Vikas Alhuwalia, a well known diabetologist and President of the Diabetes Care Foundation of India told ANI over phone.

Expressing his keenness to tackle this illness head-on, with a special focus on the youger generation, Dr. Alhuwalia said that he has launched a diabetes awareness camp in the national capital Delhi and the National capital Region (NCR) that includes places like Faridabad, Gurgaon and NOIDA.

He told ANI that these awareness camps are being held in cooperation with senior citizen associations on a monthly basis, and the response to them has been exciting. He said that his objective was to invite "various organisations, including government agencies and corporates to come forward and interact" with experts like himself to understand the dangers posed by diabetes to all age groups.

"Nowadays, people are picking up diabetes at an early stage. We need to identify who has the disease, especially in the case of youngsters. Earlier, we use to deal with diabetics who were in their 40s and 50s, now we get cases of people who are in their late 20s or early 30s. We need to treat it and prevent complications that arise with the disease at an early stage," said Dr. Alhuwalia.