More than 300 million people worldwide are at risk of developing diabetes and the disease's economic impact in some hard-hit countries could be higher than that of the AIDS pandemic, diabetes experts warned on Monday. In a report released at the International Diabetes Federation conference in Paris, experts estimate the annual healthcare costs of diabetes worldwide for people aged 20 to 79 are at least $153 billion. "In some countries with a higher incidence, diabetes has a higher economic impact than AIDS," Williams Rhys, professor of clinical epidemiology at the University of Wales, told a news conference. According to the Diabetes Atlas report, total direct healthcare spending on the disease worldwide will be between $213 billion and $396 billion by 2025, if predictions are correct that the number of people with diabetes will rise to 333 million by 2025 from 194 million. Reuters