'Worse than the HIV epidemic'
Yesterday. on World Diabetes Day, South Africans did not have much to celebrate. With 10 000 new diabetes cases diagnosed every month, we are drowning in sugar – one of the most accessible, affordable and addictive of foods.
This is Melanie's story of losing her leg to diabetes, narrated by Dr Luvhengo, the Head of Surgery at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital. This, he says, is a health crisis worse than the HIV epidemic. "Sugar is not going to make this country sweet. We are fermenting this sugar...it will be bitter for all of us."