Abstract

Background: Despite the high prevalence of undiagnosed Diabetes in Africa, the extent of undiagnosed Diabetes in the region is still poorly understood. So that this systematic review and meta-analysis was designed to determine the pooled prevalence of undiagnosed diabetes mellitus among adult individuals in Africa.

Methods: A systematic desk review and electronic web-based search of PubMed, Google Scholar, EMBASE, and the World Health Organization’s Hinari portal (which includes the SCOPUS, African Index Medicus, and African Journals Online databases) identified peer-reviewed research studies on the prevalence of undiagnosed Diabetes among adult individuals using pre-defined quality and inclusion criteria. We addressed this all articles from June 1,2018 to September 30, 2018.  The I² test was used to assess heterogeneity across studies. A random effects model was used to estimate the pooled prevalence of undiagnosed diabetes mellitus at a 95% confidence interval (CI). Funnel plot asymmetry and Egger’s tests were used to check for publication bias.

Results: Our search identified 1436 studies, of which 20 articles were eligible for inclusion in the final meta-analysis. The average pooled estimate of undiagnosed diabetes mellitus among adult individuals was 4.62 (95% CI: 3.67 – 5.57). The pooled prevalence of undiagnosed diabetes mellitus based on geographic location was 9.48 (95% CI: 4.16 - 14.8) in Western Africa and 1.46(95%CI: 0.57,2.34) in southern Africa respectively.

Conclusion: Our findings indicate high prevalence of undiagnosed diabetes in Africa and suggests that it may be more prevalent there than elsewhere.  Given the high levels of undiagnosed diabetes in the Africa region, more attention should also be paid to incorporating diabetes screening and treatment service into existing diabetes related programs to reduce undiagnosed diabetes prevalence.

Keywords: Diabetes, undiagnosed, meta-analysis, Africa