Among the aims of the International Diabetes Federation’s (IDF) Task Force is to help ensure access to insulin and other essential diabetes supplies to people with diabetes. In order to address situations where chronic problems exist with regards to the availability of and access to proper diabetes care it is important to better understand what the barriers to access are.

The Rapid Assessment Protocol for Insulin Access (RAPIA), developed by the International Insulin Foundation (IIF) [2], allows problems with diabetes care and access to medicines to be clearly identified allowing for specific targeted recommendations to be made to local stakeholders. It is not a statistical assessment of the health system, but aims to assess in a short time the situation with regards to diabetes care in a given country.

The RAPIA has been carried out in the following countries:

• Kyrgyzstan (2009)
• Philippines (2008)*
• Vietnam (2008) - Final Report [3] (pdf)
• Nicaragua (2007) - Final Report [4] (pdf)
• Mali (2004) - Final Report [5] (pdf)
• Zambia (2003) - Final Report [6] (pdf)
• Mozambique (2003, 2009) - Final Report [7] (pdf)

*carried out by the World Health Organization (WHO)