The number of people around the world living with dementia is predicted to rise from 44 million today to 135 million by 2050. The increase is 17 per cent higher than a forecast made four years ago due, in part, to the inclusion of new data from African countries and China.
The , compiled by Alzheimer鈥檚 Disease International (ADI), were published in advance of a to be held in London next week. It will bring together health ministers from the to discuss a global action plan for tackling the disease.
鈥淚t is not just the G8 countries, but all nations, that must commit to a sustained increase in dementia research,鈥� said Marc Wortmann, executive director of ADI, at a press conference yesterday to present the new forecast.
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The increase in predicted dementia cases over the last forecast, released by the ADI in 2009, can be attributed to the revision of two data sets since then. One set shows that rates of dementia in China and Africa have increased dramatically in those regions compared to in 2009. The rates in other regions had stayed roughly constant.
The other new data, , show that more people everywhere in the world are living to an age where they are vulnerable to dementia. ADI worked out the new dementia estimates by combining these new rates of disease in China and Africa with the new life span projections.
The organisation鈥檚 projection assumed a global population of 9.6 billion by 2050 from the 7 billion seen today.
Shared vision
According to the in the UK, in 2010, the global cost of dementia was $604 billion, just under the GDP of Switzerland in 2012.
Speaking at the same press conference, Doug Brown, director of R&D at the Alzheimer鈥檚 Society, said he hopes the G8 leaders will make dementia a global health priority, produce a shared vision for tackling it and increase investment in research.
of the Institute of Neurology at University College London called on the G8 to double its spending on dementia within five years. He said research targets should include finding better markers of early disease, and clinical trials to test whether drugs work better if given early on, effectively halting deterioration before it鈥檚 too late.
Progress has been made in the last few years. 鈥淚鈥檓 more encouraged now, despite the failure of six or seven large-scale trials,鈥� said , director of research at Alzheimer鈥檚 Research UK. 鈥淔irstly, we understand much better now how the pathology starts much earlier and secondly, we now have the tools available to image disease progression in living people.鈥�
Karran said that a single drug success would be a major breakthrough and help researchers untangle many aspects of the disease. 鈥淥nce we get efficacy with one drug, that will really open the door.鈥�
