Diabetes Summit for Latin America

The Diabetes Summit for Latin America held in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil is now well-terminated. More than 250 stakeholders from the region attended the Summit making it a major networking and knowledge sharing platform.

NEW: The Report from the Summit has now been published as a supplement to Practical Diabetes International.

The presentations and discussions during the Summit underscored that:

• Diabetes and related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are major public health challenges for the Latin American region posing a threat to the social and economic development of the countries in the region.
• Maternal health during pregnancy is linked to future diabetes and other NCDs in the offspring. Integrated maternal and child health programs must therefore include messages about future prevention of NCDs.
• Communicable and non communicable diseases mutually affect each other in a negative spiral. For example, diabetes more than triples the risk of developing tuberculosis. A more integrated approach including both communicable and non communicable diseases is therefore needed.
• Social determinants of health are relevant for NCDs and poverty and ignorance are fuelling the NCD epidemic. Programs to address poverty eradication should therefore include NCD prevention.

UN Special Session

The participants at the summit welcomed the UN Resolution 64/265 dated 13 May 2010 to hold a high level UN General Assembly Special Session on NCDs in September 2011. Governments in the region as well as globally were urged to participate in the UN Summit on NCDs in September 2011 and to agree on an outcome document with specific commitments on integration and strengthening of health systems to include NCDs and to substantially increase the share of funding for NCDs both globally and nationally.

At the closing of the Summit, a Call for Action document was discussed. The key issues identified for action were as follows:

• Strengthen and adjust health systems to address the prevention and care of chronic NCDs at the primary health care level.
• Strengthen efforts to implement the framework convention on tobacco control.
• Initiate, prioritise and promote "life cycle" and "life style" approach for prevention of diabetes and related NCDs to accrue multigenerational benefits of the interventions.
• Strengthen surveillance systems to track and monitor the health and economic burdens of NCDs and their risk factors.
• Recognise that survival and optimum development of children with type 1 diabetes is dependent on daily injection(s) of insulin. Creating access to uninterrupted supply of insulin and related ancillaries' for injection and monitoring is therefore not merely a matter of making a treatment available, but impinges on the child's basic human right to live.
• Ensure the inclusion of key medications in the essential drug list for rational and optimum care of common NCDs at the primary health care level and ensure availability and distribution of these medicines at all times.

For further information please contact:

Mr. Jamal Butt, Communication Manager
jmbu@worlddiabetesfoundation.org
Tel: +45 3075 4736

or

Ms. Brit Larsen, Communication Coordinator
bisl@worlddiabetesfoundation.org
Tel: +45 3075 4660