World Diabetes Day

Contact Counsellor

Last Updated14/11/2021

World Diabetes Day is celebrated every year on November 14 to mark the birthday of Sir Frederick Banting, who discovered the insulin hormone along with Charles Herbert Best in 1922.
According to experts, an estimated 463 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes, with Type-2 diabetes that needs to be treated with insulin sensitisers making up about 90 per cent of the cases.

Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs when the pancreas is no longer able to make insulin, or when the body cannot make good use of the insulin it produces.
Insulin is a hormone made by the pancreas, that acts like a key to let glucose from the food we eat pass from the blood stream into the cells in the body to produce energy.
All carbohydrate foods are broken down into glucose in the blood.
Insulin helps glucose get into the cells.
Not being able to produce insulin or use it effectively leads to raised glucose levels in the blood (known as hyperglycaemia).
Over the long-term high glucose levels are associated with damage to the body and failure of various organs and tissues.

It was created in 1991 by International Diabetes Federation (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.
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.
The campaign is represented by a blue circle logo that was adopted in 2007 after the passage of the UN Resolution on diabetes.
The blue circle is the global symbol for diabetes awareness.
It signifies the unity of the global diabetes community in response to the diabetes epidemic.

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.

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 2021-23 is Access to Diabetes Care – If Not Now, When?.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), India has an estimated 8.7 per cent diabetic population in the age group 20-70, with around 77 million people with diabetes.

Government of India is implementing NPCDCS for interventions up to District level under the National Health Mission(NHM).
It has focus on awareness generation for behaviour and life-style changes, screening and early diagnosis of persons with high level of risk factors and their treatment and referral (if required) to higher facilities for appropriate management for Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) including Diabetes.
Under NPCDCS, testing, diagnosis and treatment facilities for Diabetes are provided through different levels of healthcare by setting up NCD Clinics in District Hospitals and Community Health Centres (CHCs).
The treatment is either free or highly subsidized for the poor and needy.