A PREVALENCE SURVEY OF DIABETES IN MAURITANIA

OBJECTIVE - To perform an epidemiological study of the prevalence of d iabetes in Mauritania, West Africa, with little data available on diab etes in West Africa. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS - The study was perfo rmed with a representative sample of the Mauritanian population. A ran dom selection of the study population (n = 744) was drawn by a cluster sampling method. Screening for diabetes was made by capillary blood g lucose (CBG) measurement, using strips analyzed by reflectance meter. Criteria for the diagnosis of diabetes were those of the World Health Organization (WHO). RESULTS - The survey performed a screening of 744 subjects whose sex distribution was 307 men and 437 women. Their mean age was 34.6 +/- 15.2 years, and their mean BMI was 22.7 +/- 5.1 kg/m( 2), with a significant difference for BMI between men (20.0 +/- 2.9 kg /m(2)) and women (24.3 +/- 5.5 kg/m(2)). According to the study criter ia, we found 14 diabetic patients (4 men, 10 women). The crude prevale nce of diabetes was 1.88% (95% CI 0.90-2.86). The difference in preval ence by sex was 1.30% (95% CI 0.00-2.60) for men and 2.29% (95% CI 0.8 9-3.43) for women. For the truncated 30- to 64-year-old age-group, the crude prevalence was 2.84%; the age-adjusted prevalence for the same 30- to 64-year-old age-group, using the standardized age distribution of Segi (10), was 2.61%. CONCLUSIONS - With a crude prevalence of diab etes of 1.88% and an age-adjusted prevalence of 2.61%, Mauritania may be classified among the countries with a low prevalence of diabetes, a finding which is not surprising, considering the low level of develop ment of this region of Africa.