Some 80 per cent of people with diabetes live in low and middle income countries (LMICs), such as India. Fewer than 6 per cent of these individuals can access the care they need to manage their diabetes and prevent long-term complications like heart attacks, strokes, kidney diseases or blindness.

Hitting targets also would reduce deaths over the coming 10 years in all world regions, but the benefits are larger in some than others. For example, Eastern sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the most deaths from cardiovascular diseases due to diabetes at baseline (46 deaths per 1,000 people with diabetes) – if targets were achieved, deaths would fall to 27 per 1,000, the researchers assess.