Developing countries

President's editorial

Diabetes is rapidly emerging as a major health-care problem in India, especially in urban areas where the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes has been reported as 12% of the adult population. Furthermore, there is an equally large pool of people with

In the last issue of Diabetes Voice Panagiotis Tsapogas presented a view of diabetes care in Gaza from the perspective of his work with Médecins Sans Frontières. Here, Itamar Raz, President of the Israel Diabetes Association (IDA), presents a view from the perspective of an Israeli person living in the region, and from the leading Palestinian physicians with whom he collaborates. Together they struggle in the midst of the disruptions to deliver diabetes health care across the

Kyrgyzstan is a small mountainous country with a predominantly agricultural economy; it gained independence with the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. For a significant sector of the Kyrgyzstani population, economic difficulties at national level translate into high unemployment and widespread impoverishment. Kyrgyzstan inherited an extensive but basic health-care system, with a functioning – albeit fragmented – structure for managing chronic diseases.

Insulin is a life-sustaining medication and as such has been designated an ‘essential drug’ by the World Health Organization (WHO). Insulin therefore should be universally available to everyone who requires it for survival. However, accessibility to the drug is often not secure. This results in life-threatening complications for people who depend on insulin for survival. The authors of this article, in reporting on the results of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) survey, 2002-2003, make a call for improvements to the pricing and availability

Editor-in-Chief's editorial

President's editorial

For the West, the availability of animal insulin is a question of freedom of choice. However, it is the only way of survival for a number of people with diabetes in the developing world. Will the plea for help from the people with diabetes in the developing countries, in search of life, go unnoticed, unheard?

In Anatolia, the quality of diabetes care is generally lower than in the rest of Turkey. Half the people with diabetes living in this region are not aware of their condition. Neither are many on any treatment. Since last year, prompted by the aims of the St Vincent Declaration, the South-eastern Anatolia Diabetes Project (GAPDIAB) has been in operation in response to this situation.

For the past few decades, the Government of Bahrain has been consistently and conscientiously updating the country’s healthcare system, endeavouring to keep up with the demands placed upon it. Luckily so, because, in 1994 it was found that the figures they had been dealing with were way off track. In 1989, a Committee for Primary Care was formed by the Government of Bahrain’s Ministry of Health, standardizing care through establishing rules and regulations to guide physicians treating people with diabetes.