World Diabetes Day (WDD) is the world’s largest diabetes awareness campaign reaching a global audience of over 1 billion people in more than 160 countries. The campaign draws attention to issues of paramount importance to the diabetes world and keeps diabetes firmly in the public and political spotlight.

WDD was created in 1991 by IDF and the World Health Organization in response to growing concerns about the escalating health threat posed by diabetes. World Diabetes Day became an official United Nations Day in 2006 with the passage of United Nation Resolution 61/225. It is marked every year on 14 November, the birthday of Sir Frederick Banting, who co-discovered insulin along with Charles Best in 1922.

The World Diabetes Day campaign aims to be the:

    • Platform to promote IDF advocacy efforts throughout the year.

    • Global driver to promote the importance of taking coordinated and concerted actions to confront diabetes as a critical global health issue.

The campaign is represented by a blue circle logo that was adopted in 2007 after the passage of the UN Resolution on diabetes.

This year’s World Diabetes Day falls during a global pandemic which has already taken the lives of well over a million people. People with diabetes are paying a particularly high price. Not only do they have a higher risk of severe COVID-19 disease and death when infected, but many are having difficulty accessing the treatment they need due to disruptions to essential health services.

Every year, the World Diabetes Day campaign focuses on a dedicated theme that runs for one or more years. The theme for World Diabetes Day 2020 is The Nurse and Diabetes. Messaging and materials will start to be made available during the second quarter of 2020.

Nursing Stat as per WHO

    • Nurses accounts for 59% of health professionals

    • The global nursing workforce is 27.9 million, of which 19.3 million are professional nurses

    • The global shortage of nurses in 2018 was 5.9 million. 89% of that shortage is concentrated in low- and middle-income countries

    • The number of nurses trained and employed needs to grow by 8% a year to overcome alarming shortfalls in the profession by 2030.

Stat On Diabetes

    • 463 million adults (1-in-11) were living with diabetes in 2019 The number of people living with diabetes is expected rise to 578 million by 2030.

    • 1 in 2 adults with diabetes remain undiagnosed (232 million). The majority have type 2 diabetes.

    • More than 3 in 4 people with diabetes live in low and middle-income countries.

    • 1 in 6 live births (20 million) are affected by high blood glucose (hyperglycemia) in pregnancy.

    • Two-thirds of people with diabetes live in urban areas and three-quarters are of working age.

    • 1 in 5 people with diabetes (136 million) are above 65 years old.

    • Diabetes caused 4.2 million deaths in 2019.

    • Diabetes was responsible for at least $760 billion in health expenditure in 2019 – 10% of the global total spent on healthcare.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants. The views expressed here are personal.)