World Diabetes Day in Brazil

Programme Coordinator Tilde Frøyr experienced the World Diabetes Day at first hand during her monitoring visit to Sao Paulo, Brazil, the only Latin American country offering free health care for all.

In Brazil it was decided to spread the events celebrating World Diabetes Day, 14 November, to several days, in order to ensure a large participation.

One of the Brazilian approaches was to focus on diabetes by screening people. On 12th of November, WDF Programme Coordinator Tilde Frøyr witnessed a diabetes screening camp arranged by “Associacao Nacional de Assistencia ao Diabetico”, ANAD, held at a college site in Sao Paulo. Ms. Frøyr praises the volunteers who arranged and conducted the camp: “Doctors, students, pharmacists, nutritionists and other health care workers all put in their efforts and worked very efficiently. It was a very positive experience”.

Experiencing bottleneck problems of free health care

Brazil has recently decided to offer free health care for its population, but the system presents a bottleneck, where people can wait several months for a simple check up. As a result of the screening camp an estimate of 7,000 people were screened. Persons needing further treatment were referred, preventing undiscovered diabetes or complications to develop further due to the waiting time within the health care system.

A blood test will show if he has diabetes. Screening camp in Sao Paulo

“At this camp”; Tilde Frøyr says” people were given a consultation, in some cases resulting in a diagnosis of either diabetes or a diabetes complication such as retinopathy. For known diabetics it is an opportunity to see all the specialists they need related to their diabetes in one day, something they might have had to wait for a whole year”. ANAD expects that 3-400 new cases of diabetes were discovered during the day.

Walking for the blind

Tilde Frøyr attended a Global Diabetes Walk held on 15 November in Burle Marx Park, Sao Paulo.
Around 200 people participated in this relatively small walk, bigger walks were held in Rio, Montes Clares and Belo Horizonte. One of the purposes of the walk was to support an association for blind people, whose members were giving massages to the participants.

During the walk Tilde Frøyr met 32 year old Gilberto Secche, who has been blind from diabetes since 2001. Gilberto has had diabetes since he was 13 years of age, and the free health care system has made his life easier; not troubled with the economic burden diabetes used to be for him and his family.

Of the adult population in Brazil 6,9% have diabetes. Only 54% of the people with diabetes are aware of their disease, the rest need to be diagnosed in order to prevent complications like retinopathy. WDF is supporting a project in Brazil that will increase awareness and knowledge within the health care system and in the general population.

Read more about the project in Brazil