Mauritius is confronting a diabetes epidemic that offers an important warning for healthcare systems across the IMEA CPO region.
Nearly one in five Mauritians lives with diabetes, according to figures cited by L’Express, making the island one of the countries with the highest diabetes prevalence globally. The International Diabetes Federation estimates that approximately 20.1% of Mauritians aged 20–79 — around 218,000 people — live with diabetes. Mauritius is ranked 12th globally for diabetes disease burden.
The figures are particularly significant for prosthetic and orthotic professionals because diabetes is not simply a metabolic disease. Over time, poorly controlled diabetes can contribute to peripheral neuropathy, vascular disease, foot ulceration and, in severe cases, lower-limb amputation.
For CPOs and rehabilitation professionals, Mauritius therefore illustrates why diabetes prevention and diabetic foot management must be considered part of the wider prosthetic rehabilitation pathway.
Sugar tax has not solved the problem
Mauritius introduced a sugar tax in 2013 and has subsequently expanded and increased it. The latest policy measures included further expansion of the sugar-content tax under the country’s 2026–27 Budget, with the objective of reducing sugar consumption and encouraging healthier choices.
Yet the prevalence of diabetes remains extremely high.
The experience demonstrates the difficulty of addressing non-communicable diseases through a single policy intervention. Taxation may influence purchasing behaviour, but diabetes risk is shaped by a much broader combination of dietary patterns, physical activity, obesity, genetics, socioeconomic factors and access to preventive healthcare.
The Mauritius Non-Communicable Diseases Survey 2021 found that 19.9% of adults aged 25–74 had Type 2 diabetes. More than a third of adults were also overweight or obese, while hypertension and high cholesterol were widespread.
For healthcare systems, this creates a cumulative burden extending far beyond diabetes management itself.
The connection to prosthetic and orthotic care
Type 2 diabetes accounts for the overwhelming majority of diagnosed adult diabetes cases in Mauritius. The disease can remain undetected for years, allowing elevated blood glucose to progressively damage blood vessels, nerves, kidneys and eyes.
Peripheral neuropathy is particularly important from a P&O perspective.
Reduced sensation in the foot can mean that minor pressure points, skin damage or trauma go unnoticed. When combined with impaired circulation and delayed wound healing, a relatively small foot injury can develop into a serious ulcer.
Once infection, tissue damage or critical vascular compromise develops, amputation can become necessary.
This creates a continuum in which prevention, diabetic foot management, orthotic intervention and prosthetic rehabilitation are closely connected.
The prosthetist or orthotist therefore has a role that can begin well before amputation.
Prevention should begin before the prosthetic clinic
The growing prevalence of diabetes across IMEA makes early intervention increasingly important.
For orthotic professionals, this can include appropriate footwear and pressure management, accommodative orthoses, insoles and foot protection strategies for patients at elevated risk.
However, effective prevention depends on multidisciplinary collaboration.
Diabetologists, primary-care physicians, vascular specialists, podiatrists, physiotherapists, nurses, orthotists and prosthetists all have a role to play in identifying patients at risk and intervening before a wound becomes limb-threatening.
For patients who do undergo amputation, the same multidisciplinary approach remains essential.
The objective is not simply to provide a prosthesis. Rehabilitation must address residual-limb health, socket fit, mobility, gait, balance, cardiovascular capacity, contralateral limb protection and the patient’s ability to manage their diabetes.
A wider IMEA challenge
Mauritius is a small island nation, but its experience is relevant across the wider IMEA region.
Diabetes is increasingly affecting countries undergoing rapid urbanisation and economic transition. Dietary changes, reduced physical activity and increasing obesity are contributing to growing NCD burdens across many Middle Eastern, African, Central Asian and South Asian populations.
This has direct implications for prosthetic services.
As diabetes prevalence rises, P&O providers can expect greater demand for services associated with diabetic foot management, limb preservation and diabetes-related amputation.
At the same time, healthcare systems face pressure to contain costs.
That makes prevention particularly important. Avoiding an amputation is clinically preferable for the patient and generally less resource-intensive than providing lifelong prosthetic rehabilitation.
The role of the CPO
The profession therefore has an opportunity to broaden the way it communicates its value to healthcare policymakers.
CPO services should not be viewed solely through the lens of post-amputation rehabilitation.
Orthotists and prosthetists can contribute to limb preservation strategies, particularly through early identification of pressure-related problems, footwear provision, orthotic intervention and patient education.
This is especially important for health systems developing integrated diabetic foot pathways.
Data can also strengthen the case for investment. Tracking ulcer recurrence, amputation rates, device use, mobility outcomes and hospital admissions can help demonstrate the value of preventative P&O intervention.
Technology can support earlier intervention
Digital technologies are also creating new opportunities.
3D foot scanning, pressure mapping, digital orthotic design and digitally manufactured insoles can potentially improve the speed and consistency with which footwear and orthotic interventions are delivered.
For countries where specialist P&O capacity is limited, digital workflows may also support decentralised services and enable more efficient collaboration between clinicians and technical teams.
But technology alone will not solve the problem.
The fundamental requirement remains a functioning clinical pathway in which high-risk patients are identified early, referred appropriately and followed over time.
From sugar policy to limb preservation
Mauritius’ experience provides a useful lesson for healthcare policymakers across IMEA.
The country’s sugar tax represents an attempt to address one contributor to an increasingly serious NCD burden. But the persistence of very high diabetes prevalence demonstrates that population health requires a much broader strategy.
For the P&O community, the lesson is equally important.
Diabetes-related amputation should not be treated as an isolated prosthetic problem. It is often the end point of a chain involving metabolic disease, neuropathy, vascular compromise, foot pathology and delayed intervention.
Breaking that chain requires earlier action.
For CPOs, this means greater engagement with diabetic foot teams, primary care, podiatry, vascular services and public-health programmes. It also means positioning orthotic intervention and limb preservation alongside prosthetic rehabilitation as essential components of diabetes care.
As diabetes continues to rise across the IMEA region, the future demand for prosthetic services will be influenced not only by how many people lose limbs, but by how effectively healthcare systems can prevent avoidable amputations in the first place.
Mauritius’ experience is a reminder that the most successful prosthetic outcome may ultimately be the amputation that never happens.
- L’Express – Diabetes: sweet poison vs sugar tax
- International Diabetes Federation
- World Health Organization – Diabetes
- International Working Group on the Diabetic Foot
Source: L’Express, “Public health | Diabetes: sweet poison vs sugar tax,” 18 August 2026.