Tedros while addressing the crisis was particularly important in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, stressing that ‘a high proportion of people who are severely ill in hospital with Covid-19 have diabetes’.
The WHO says that about 422 million people worldwide have diabetes, most living in low-and middle-income countries, and 1.6 million deaths are directly attributed to diabetes each year.
The WHO said diabetes deaths had risen by 70 percent since 2000 and it was now the world’s ninth leading cause of death.
In 2019, the World Health Organization introduced a prequalification pilot programme aimed at bringing more manufacturers into the market to ‘help increase the availability of quality-assured insulin to countries that are currently not meeting demand’.
It said talks had begun with insulin manufacturers about ways to meet the growing demand ‘at prices that countries can afford’.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
