[Prevalence of diabetes in a random sample from the gouvernorat of Tunis (author's transl)]

Prevalence of diabetes was estimated on the basis of both interviewing the subjects and measuring fasting blood glucose among a one per cent random sample from the population of the Gouvernorat of Tunis. Sampling was done using the household as unit and three stages of randomization. The number of households investigated was 1 449, a total of 9 712 subjects. In this sample, including 45% of males, mean age is equal to 24.8 years in males and 26.0 in females. Globally, prevalence is equal to 2.3%, half-composed of previously known diabetics. In more than 50% of them, the disease was revealed by cardinal symptoms and 17% are insulin-treated. The frequency of the disease, already known or newly diagnosed, is steadily lower than 1% in the first classes of age and then distinctly increases from thirty years of age in males and forty in females, reaching a value close to 10% after sixty years.