The number of people registered with diabetes in Greece has increased significantly, with official health data showing cases rising from 1.06 million in 2021 to nearly 1.3 million in 2025.
According to data from the Electronic Governance of Social Security (IDIKA), registered diabetes patients increased from 1,067,165 in 2021 to 1,292,729 in 2025, while the prevalence of the disease rose from 10.2% to 12.3% of the population.
The Panhellenic Federation of Associations of People with Diabetes (POSSASDIA) highlighted the importance of these figures as a critical tool for developing evidence-based prevention and healthcare policies.
POSSASDIA participated in the Digital4Pharma 2026 – TRUSTFORMATION conference, which focused on how technology can transform into meaningful healthcare solutions through three key pillars: trust, adoption and value.
The federation was represented by its president, Christos Daramilas, who took part in the panel “Building Healthcare Partnerships for Access to Technology, Models and Data.”
During the discussion, Daramilas highlighted the importance of using secondary health data to design effective healthcare policies. He presented POSSASDIA’s experience in analysing long-term data from IDIKA and the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), stressing that real-world data provides the foundation for sound health planning.
Daramilas explained that POSSASDIA has collected and analysed health data since 2017, not only to monitor the epidemiological picture of diabetes in Greece but also to develop evidence-based proposals for government policy.
The use of IDIKA data has contributed to several important developments, including:
- reimbursement of preventive complication screening tests for people with diabetes;
- removal of diagnostic imaging co-payments for people with Type 1 diabetes;
- reimbursement of continuous glucose monitoring systems for people with Type 1 diabetes;
- proposals to expand CGM reimbursement for people with Type 2 diabetes undergoing intensive insulin therapy;
- evidence supporting the need to revise the diabetes healthcare budget; and
- POSSASDIA’s long-standing proposal for a National Diabetes Action Plan.
“Data is not an end in itself. It gains value only when it becomes policy that improves people’s lives. Greece now has diabetes data available. The challenge is to use it systematically so that every decision is based on evidence rather than estimates,” Daramilas said.
He added that challenges remain in achieving wider acceptance and use of these datasets among both the scientific community and public authorities.