Diabetes super course, Egypt

Objectives

According to the IDF Diabetes Atlas, 3rd Edition, over 24 million people between 20 and 79 have diabetes in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions. By 2025, this number is predicted to increase to 44.5 million. Diabetes is a severe and life-threatening disease which imposes a considerable financial burden on individuals, their families, the health sector, and governments.

Despite the epidemic of diabetes in the Middle East, diabetes prevention methods only represent a fraction of the curriculum in schools of higher education, such as medical, nursing, and undergraduate schools in general.

The project aims to raise public awareness of preventing and controlling diabetes in the MENA region (Middle East/North Africa).

Approach

The project establishes the groundwork for increasing the awareness of different target groups in the MENA Region in the short term. A Diabetes Supercourse is designed to empower the diabetes lecturers in the region, thus allowing them to improve their teaching methods on diabetes prevention and control.

A Supercourse represents a library of top-quality lectures about diabetes collected from the world’s leading experts on diabetes. These lectures are free online and distributed on DVDs in the MENA region. Four hundred lectures are collected over two years, and a web page is created from which the lectures will be available.

Furthermore, several lectures on diabetes prevention and self-management are translated into Arabic to broaden outreach to the public and Science teachers. This is done in collaboration with NGOs and the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) science centre.

The capacity building of health professionals and medical students is reinforced by developing a two-week training course for young researchers/health professionals in the Middle East on the Epidemiology of Diabetes. During the two years, one training course on diabetes research/epidemiology/education and prevention led by three international experts and assisted by three local diabetes experts is held. Fifty students throughout the region and a small number of additional students from Europe, Africa, and the US are invited to continue building the global collaboration network.

It is also anticipated that the project will contribute to increasing public awareness about diabetes predisposing factors and the measure of diabetes self-management.

Results at completion

- A network of 2000 diabetes stakeholders was established
- A Diabetes Supercourse website created and 400 Power point diabetes lectures to the MENA Region were collected and distributed
- 8,000 CD/DVD with diabetes lectures distributed