Dear Friends,

In my introductory speech after being elected as your President in Montreal last October, I informed you that one of the priorities of the new board for this triennium is to reach out more to our member associations. We are working wholeheartedly on this as we feel this is an important aspect of our work.

We have received overwhelming feedback and support on the new style of our newsletter which I hope will serve as a dynamic and effective communication tool between our Re-gional office in Brussels and our member associations spread across all over Europe.

I must congratulate and thank Cris-tian Andriciuc, our Editor and Anne-marie Bevers, my colleague on the IDF Europe board who is ultimately responsible for communications and public relations within IDF Europe, for all their efforts in putting in place a comprehensive an interesting piece of reading - our own Regional newsletter!

The newsletter is not the only means of communication – we have re-vamped our intranet site to ensure that this contains useful information for your associations and the per-sons living with diabetes in your countries. We are trying to constantly keep you updated with ‘breaking news’ items and issues we feel are relevant to you. We are also trying to update our Intranet site to ensure

that this contains useful resources and information.

We however need your input too. You, as im-portant repre-sentatives of the millions living with diabetes in Europe can contribute by giving us your constant feedback; ideas on what you expect from IDF Europe and above all what issues you feel we should ad-dress. We wish the intranet to be a live and dynamic communication tool that will break any barrier that existed in the com-munication between IDF Europe and our member associations.

You are aware that over the past weeks we placed an online voting system re-questing you to inform us what items we should address during the Work Shops for our forthcoming ‘Together we are Stronger’ meeting In Brussels next No-vember. We did receive feedback from all of you but there is definitely room for im-provement. I urge you to take serious note of any requests we make to you to ensure that ultimately our activities are what you really feel we should carry out.

IDF Europe represents you, our member

Reaching out to our Member Associations

S t o r i e s

i n s i d e

From our mem-

bers

3

Meetings and

Congresses

7

New National

Diabetes Pro-

grammes

6

NCD Alliance 10

The EU Plat-

form for Diet

was evaluated

11

the european diabetes newsletter

N o . 1 9 J u l y 2 0 1 0

In th i s i s s ue

• The IDF Europe

board has a new

approach to com-

munication.

• Countries are

facing different

crisis economical,

political or “just”

environmental. We

are looking if these

situations are af-

fecting the persons

living with diabetes.

• The spring was

full with meetings

and health events.

IDF Europe at-

tended some of

them.

(continued on page 2)

P a g e 2

associations. You voice the feelings, frustrations, wishes of the millions living with diabetes over Europe. It is therefore important that the communication between IDF Europe and your member associations is responsive and ongoing.

You will hear more about all this during our forthcoming General Assembly and ‘Together we are Stronger’ meeting which will be held in Brussels in the last weekend in November. The choice of Brussels as our venue coincides with the fact that Belgium hosts the EU Presidency in the 2nd half of 2010.

I urge you to attend this annual important meeting which besides being an excellent networking opportunity allows us to discuss important aspects of Diabetes and related issues.

I wish you and all your families Happy Summer holidays – I hope you get some well deserved rest with your families and friends.

See you in Brussels next November.

With kind regards,

Chris J Delicata

President

t h e e u r o p e a n d i a b e t e s n e w s l e t t e r

Office news in brief

• The new Operational Plan for 2009—2012 is posted on our web site. You may

download it from the Action Plans tag of our web site (www.idf-europe.org) or

you may translate it in your preferred language using the tools offered by the

Intranet (sign in for the Intranet and look at Resource Library—Office docu-

ments).

• The results of our survey regarding the provision of local laws concerning diabe-

tes and the driving license are presented in the latest issues of Diabetes Voice

(volume 55, issue 1) in an article written by João Valente Nabais, the IDF

Europe President-Elect. You may read or download the article at

www.diabetesvoice.org/en/articles/diabetes-at-the-wheel-–-the-need-for-safety

-and-fairness-under-the-law

• IDF Europe was part of the team implementing the IMAGE Project. One of the results

of the project is the Prevention Toolkit. It provides practical information for anyone ...

Reaching out to our Member Associations (continued from page 1)

(continued on page 12)

P a g e 3 J u l y 2 0 1 0

In Austria about 500.000 people are currently affected by diabetes. However this is only a rough estimate of the real number of patients as a structured registry is missing. The Ministry of Health has initiated a national diabetes regis-try for establishing a disease specific quality management system and a nationwide epidemi-ologic database.

Evaluating outcome data and maintaining a high standard of care are the main aims of the registry. The participation is on a voluntary ba-sis and all centre specific data are confidential. For establish this registry it is necessary to de-sign a certain data capturing system which will collect data directly or indirectly via already working disease management programs like

“Therapie aktiv”. Spe-cific labora-tory results should be extracted from the local data manage-ment sys-tem of every cen-tre partici-pating in the registry.

The minis-try of health will main-tain a qual-ity manage-ment sys-tem and all collected data will be made avail-able for data analy-sis for the participating centres. A special web

From our members

Setting up a national Diabetes

registry in Austria

Dutch Diabetes Association conducts national survey on diabetes care

The Dutch Diabetes Association, with 60,000 members and potentially 750,000 patients as its stakeholders, is conducting a survey on diabetes care and how patients experience the care they receive.

The previous survey, conducted in 2008, focused on persons with type 2 diabetes. Now, the survey is meant for people with all types of diabetes. The results found in 2010 for diabetes type 2 will be compared with the 2008 results.

Maarten Ploeg, director, explains: “We have found a great need for further research on the Diabetes Care Standard that was adopted earlier by the caregivers. In 2008, we translated the formal and official texts for caregivers on type 2 diabetes to texts that patients could understand. Therefore it is interesting to see whether the persons with type 2 diabetes are experiencing a rise in quality of care. In 2008 we found that the diabetes related health services were not conducted properly, leading to fact that people with diabetes were exposed to un-necessary risks. The DDA will use the re-sults of the present survey to further dis-cuss quality of care with care givers and in-surance companies. The DDA hopes that patients will use the results to claim proper diabetes care.

The survey can be found online: www.diabeteszorgmonitor.nl (in Dutch).

based interface will be designed for auto-matic data reporting. Personal data collec-tion will be in accordance with the Austrian personal data protection Agency.

The whole project was launched in the spring of 2009; at the moment the variables for data collection are being defined.

P a g e 4

t h e e u r o p e a n d i a b e t e s n e w s l e t t e r

The economic crisis forced the Greek Gov-

ernment to take certain measures to de-

crease the governmental expenses. One of

these measures is decreasing the level of

compensation of all publicly supported

medication by 25%. As a result, at the be-

ginning of June, one of the pharmaceutical

companies active in Greece decided to stop

the distribution of certain products, and

opened legal action. IDF and IDF Europe

were in contact with the local organizations

and as a result IDF posted on the web a po-

sition paper asking for responsibility to-

wards the persons with diabetes affected by

the decision of the pharma company. Fortu-

nately the company restarted distributing

the diabetes medication. Please see the IDF

position paper at www.idf.org/idf-statement

-availability-insulin-greece

oped earlier this year with support from

IDF, IIF and WHO] will be integrated into

our new National Health Strategy to be

developed during this year.”

In the same time we also received positive

messages from the diabetes associations

supporting the idea that the crisis does not

have at this moment effects for the per-

sons with diabetes from most of the coun-

try.

In early April Kyrgyzstan was the scene of

political unrest that led to the change of the

team that manages the country. IDF Europe

tried to contact the local organizations, the

officials or any contacts in the country in

order to find out if the political crisis is af-

fecting the persons with diabetes. Commu-

nication channels did not function properly

for quite a while but finally there were sev-

eral responses to our messages: in a letter

addressed to IDF and IDF Europe the new

officials of the Ministry of Health give assur-

ance that the political crisis did not affect

the normal proce-

dures of medica-

tion procurement.

“…the health of

the Kyrgyz popula-

tion remains a pri-

ority and … the

need remains to

develop a compre-

hensive approach

to fighting diabe-

tes. … We hope

that this plan

[focussed on dia-

betes and devel-

Kyrgyzstan

Crisis backlash on diabetes

Greece

From our members

P a g e 5 J u l y 2 0 1 0

On 29 May 2010, the Polish Diabe-tes Association organized a diabetes conference in Hajnowka, East Po-land, entitled “The Polish Diabetes Association, medical corporations, and healthcare professionals fight-ing diabetes complications”. The conference was attended by more than 200 participants who had the opportunity to listen to several in-teresting lectures on new treatment methods, medication reimburse-ment and disease financing. During the breaks, the participants visited a fair with diabetes related products and had the opportunity to see, learn about or test some of the ex-hibitors’ latest products.

hosted in specialized paediatric centres.

The new approach is also looking to the care of children with diabetes in school and in Kin-dergarten as it often represents a problem. School personnel fears to assume responsi-bilities with children with diabetes. This translates into situations when children with diabetes do not attend kindergarten, or are not allowed to participate in school events. A solution would be the use of more mobile nurses, but this usually fails because of the lack of financing.

To support the implementation of this new programme, the Austrian Diabetes Associa-tion launched an awareness and a fund rais-ing campaign.

"We hope that [with the new intervention programme] we will be able to highly im-prove the diabetes care for children and young people," says lecturer Dr Raimund Weitgasser, president of the Austrian Diabe-tes Association. "The costs are marginal if compared to the savings they bring.”

The Austrian Diabetes Association pre-sented in a press conference on 2 June in Vienna the latest diabetes incidence fig-ures in children and adolescents. The number of new cases of children and ado-lescents with type 1 diabetes in 2008 doubled compared to 1999 and there are more and more young children under 5 years affected. The reasons for this are still unclear. The trend continues to be alarmingly rising. In the same period the incidence of type 2 diabetes mellitus in children remained rather constant.

The present situation which often trans-lates in the onset of life-threatening situa-tions such as severe hypoglycemia or dia-betic ketoacidosis, calls for the urgent ex-pansion of health care structures for chil-dren with diabetes.

The Austrian Association of Paediatric Dia-betology and Endocrinology, under the chairmanship of Prof Dr Birgit Rami pub-lished updated guidelines in line with the ones in other European countries. The new structures require the establishment of multidisciplinary teams that should be

Austria: Steep rise in child diabetes requires new support structures

Poland

P a g e 6

t h e e u r o p e a n d i a b e t e s n e w s l e t t e r

New National Diabetes Programmes

The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport of the Netherlands awarded the Netherlands Diabetes Federation a grant to im-plement the NDAP. The project was initiated in 2009 and will be com-pleted in 2013. The over-all goal of the NDAP is to ensure a widespread use (90%) of a comprehen-sive and up-to-date Standard of Care for dia-betes. To achieve this goal several activities will be implemented: the de-velopment of a compre-hensive and up-to-date standard of care for dia-betes, prevention, rede-fining the position of the

patient/client, improving quality of the service, management and knowl-edge, regulation and cost-ing, and electronic data exchange and communica-tion. It is foreseen that the outcome and experience might be used to trigger similar programmes in other chronic diseases ar-eas.

In the next issue we will present more about some projects the Dutch Diabe-tes Association has devel-oped under the National Diabetes Action Pro-gramme.

the answer of the present health system is

too slow for the continuously changing en-

vironment and that controlling diabetes is a

challenge for the whole community. The

programme was projected as a continuum

of services in time and for different situa-

tions of the patient.

The involvement and commitment of the

stakeholders made that the programme can

start and function without additional fund-

ing for at least two years. Each of the par-

ticipants was assigned specific actions and

targets as well as a timeline, an estimated

budget, and indicators of success. As ex-

pected, the Slovenian Diabetes Association

is a contributor and an implementer of this

programme.

This year Slovenia launched the National

Diabetes Programme aimed to decrease the

incidence of type 2 diabetes in the country.

The process was outstanding due to its

length as well as approach: it took about 15

years of negotiation and it involved all the

possible stakeholders who may have any

contribution to achieving the proposed goal.

The contributors are specialists in diabetol-

ogy, general practitioners, paediatricians,

pharmacists, professional association of

dietetics and nutritionists, the chamber of

nursing (section of endocrinology), persons

with diabetes, the public health division,

the Health Insurance House of Slovenia,

and the Ministry of Health.

The group started to work being aware that

Slovenia

The Netherlands

P a g e 7 J u l y 2 0 1 0

Meetings and congresses

DEPAC stands for Diabetes Experts Panel from Accessing Countries and brings to-gether representatives of diabetes profes-sionals and lay organizations from 12 countries that entered the EU in the last seven years.

In March 2010 the 11th meeting of the DE-PAC took place in Larnaca, Cyprus and consisted in one day and a half of discus-sions and presentations that highlighted:

• the status of diabetes related health services in Cyprus

• the role of the Cyprus Diabetes Asso-ciation in lobbying the government

• how can be effectively used the results of a EU funded project BIRO/EUROBIRO, Mediterranean diet today

• camps for persons with diabetes – best practices

• the role of diabetes associations in the development

• implementation and monitoring of the National Diabetes Programmes

• access to media

• means of improving diabetes care

• safety issues related to modern insulins

• new initiatives at EU level, and

• a review of the current activity lines of IDF Europe.

The meeting was opened by local officials representing the Ministry of Health and the City Hall of Larnaca and was attended by the President of the IDF Europe, Mr Chris Delicata. To address all aspects of interest presented by the participants, the work was shared between plenary and split ses-sions (medical, non-medical). The format allows that the issues are discussed in depth by those who are directly facing them, while the plenary sessions are offer-ing common ground for coordinated visions

and cross border initiatives. The partici-pants are assuming certain responsibili-ties and are contributing to common pro-jects agreed by the group (the DEPAC survey, the network of quality centres).

Between 8 and 11 April the 6th World Congress on Prevention of Diabetes and its Complications ( WCPD 2010) took place in Dresden, Germany. This was the 6th congress in line focusing especially on diabetes prevention. The major theme of this congress was “Prevention in Prac-tice”. Approximately 1.000 scientists, re-searchers and people interested in diabe-tes prevention practice, coming from 67 different countries, attended the con-gress. The scientific and practical aspects of how to implement diabetes prevention into clinical practice were discussed in 43 different sessions and workshops. As a summary of this congress a state of the art practice guideline accompanied by an evidence based guideline for the preven-tion of type 2 diabetes was issued. Fur-thermore more than 45 different pro-

(continued on page 8)

DEPAC 11

Mr Soteris Yiangou presenting the Cyprus Diabetes

Association’s experience in diabetes camps

The 6th World Congress

on Prevention of Diabetes

and its Complications

t h e e u r o p e a n d i a b e t e s n e w s l e t t e r

grams for diabetes prevention world wide were introduced and discussed. It was a great success to have such a small congress dedicated to this important topic in an envi-ronment where the people can meet, discuss and develop plans. The WCPD 2010 was the state of the art congress for diabetes pre-vention in practice.

Professor Jean-Claude Mbanya of the Interna-tional Diabetes Federation gave an excellent opening address which set the scene and gave an histori-cal perspective of what has become a global pan-demic of diabetes. In a special workshop IDF ad-dressed the issue of “How to identify those at risk globally?” The workshop aim was to develop a global strategy for risk assessments for those with type 2 diabetes risk. Prof Jaakko Tuomilehto and Prof Steven Colagiuri initi-ated this proposal and nearly all known researchers, who are working from a public health and epidemiol-ogical perspective to develop risk assess-ment concepts, took part. The International Diabetes Federation is starting a 2 years project to develop this global risk assess-ment strategy for type 2 diabetes risk. The results will be presented at the World Diabe-tes Congress in Dubai in 2011.

The several sections of the congress ad-dressed the theory and praxis of preven-tion via prevention parcour, new tech-nologies for none invasive diabetes risk detection, the outcomes of the IMAGE Project (including its toolkit to address

prevention in a practical manner), the use and impact of networking (“Who is active in diabetes prevention”), prevention of type 1 diabetes, behaviour and lifestyle change, drugs in diabetes prevention, and diabetes prevention in developing coun-tries.

The 8th summit of the representatives of the diabetes organizations in the Eastern Euro-pean Countries was held in Samarqand, Uz-bekistan, between 16 and 18 April 2010. The meeting was attended by representatives of diabetes associations from ten countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Ka-zakhstan, Moldova, Russia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.

Meetings and congresses The 6th Prevention Congress (continued from page 7)

P a g e 8

The venue of the 6th World Congress on Prevention of Diabetes

and its Complications was the modern Congress Centre in Dresden

The 8th EEC Summit of the

Diabetes Associations’

representatives

(continued on page 9)

P a g e 9 J u l y 2 0 1 0

Meetings and congresses

The board of IDF Europe was represented by Elena Shelestova and Alexander Mayo-rov. Special guests were Wim Wintjens and Prof Peter Schwartz.

The meeting was officially opened by sev-eral representatives of the Uzbek Ministry of Health and Samarqand officials. Health pro-fessionals and politicians acknowledged some of the main problems that the persons with diabetes in Uzbekistan are facing: low registration rate of the persons with diabe-tes, low priority of diabetes, little interest in securing the needed medication and proper access to health services for people with diabetes.

During the summit the participants dis-cussed about the role of the diabetes asso-ciations in protecting the rights of the per-

sons with diabetes, the development, im-plementation and monitoring of the na-tionals diabetes programmes, new tools in diabetes prevention, the involvement in the monitoring and amending of public policies, and the premises to develop a common platform for patient education in the region. Each of the participants pre-sented the latest issues their organiza-tions are facing. A special interest was represented by the presence for the first time of representatives from Armenia and Turkmenistan, as well as the new per-spective on primary prevention presented by Prof Peter Schwarz.

All the participants agreed to support a common resolution of the meeting that will basically urge the government of Uz-bekistan to properly address the issues of diabetes. It was also agreed that all the countries should make use of the best practices developed by any of the mem-ber countries and if possible to use simi-lar tools in addressing patient education and diabetes prevention activities.

The 8th EEC Summit of the

Diabetes Associations’

representatives (continued from page 8)

Participants to

the 11th EEC

meeting in

Samarqand

t h e e u r o p e a n d i a b e t e s n e w s l e t t e r

The Non Communicable Diseases (NCD) Alliance is an informal alliance of four in-ternational federations representing the four main NCDs outlined in the World Health Organization’s 2008-2013 Action Plan for NCDs – cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory disease. These conditions share common risk factors (including tobacco use, physi-cal inactivity and unhealthy diets) and also share common solutions, which pro-vide a mutual platform for collaboration and joint advocacy. By working together from the global to the local level in an in-formal alliance representing nearly 900 national member associations, the alli-ance brings a united voice to the global campaign for non-communicable dis-eases.

The NCD Alliance uses targeted advocacy and outreach to ensure that NCDs are recognized as a major cause of poverty, a barrier to economic development and a global emergency. This is done by work-ing with a wide range of partners and or-ganizations, speaking with a united voice at key international meetings, and press-ing governments to recognize that NCDs are a global development priority requir-ing an urgent response. The NCD Alliance has no official structure and is not a membership organization, but works with many partners that share a common in-terest in improving the lives of people liv-ing with NCDs and addressing their risk factors.

The Alliance was established in 2009. In May the NCD Alliance launched the suc-cessful campaign for a United Nations General Assembly Summit on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs). The UN Resolution calling for the Summit was unanimously passed by UN member states on 13 May 2010. The final resolu-tion is available on the United Nations website (http://www.un.org/ga/64/

resolutions.shtml)

IDF and the NCD Alliance ask for:

• An UN General Assembly on NCDs to raise the profile of diabetes and NCDs and increase political commit-ment;

• NCDs to be recognised as a develop-ment issue and as relevant for achievement of the Millennium De-velopment Goals (MDGs). An NCD indicator to be added at the review of the MDGs;

• International funding to address NCDs for low and middle income countries (LMCs). The mandate of the Global Fund should be expanded to include NCDs;

• NCDs should be integrated into ex-isting programmes, particularly at primary health care level.

Extensive consultations will be required to define the key tasks of the NCD commu-nity and ensure that the meeting pro-duces concrete outcomes. Further re-search will be required in order to esti-mate the costs of the national interven-tions needed to successfully address NCDs in LMCs. It will also be critical to ensure that NCD interventions contribute to health systems strengthening within a horizontal rather than a vertical funding approach. News about the activities of the NCD Alliance are posted on www.ncdalliance.org

The NCD Alliance

P a g e 1 0

P a g e 1 1 J u l y 2 0 1 0

The European Chronic

Diseases Alliance

In Europe, 10 not-for-profit science-based European organisations, representing over 100,000 health professionals, have joined forces to reverse the rise in chronic non-communicable diseases.

The Alliance puts the case for immediate political action at European level, as chronic non-communicable diseases affect more than a third of the population of Europe – over 100 million citizens. The evidence is overwhelming for tackling the four major risk factors: tobacco, poor nutrition, lack of physical activity and alcohol.

In June the Chronic Diseases Alliance pre-sented a document to John Dalli, the EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Pol-icy setting out their strategy for tackling chronic diseases. The press release was posted on our intranet. You can also see there the content of the document for-warded to the EU Commission. A web page of the alliance will be soon open for the public.

A comprehensive evaluation report covering the first five years of the European Commis-sion's Platform for Action on Diet, Physical Activity and Health has pinpointed the effec-tiveness of the platform tool as well as the divisions between not-for-profit and indus-try members.

The report acknowledges that it is too early to tell whether the Platform has been suc-cessful in its global objective, namely to "contain or reverse the trend of sustained, acute EU-wide increase in overweight or obesity".

Instead it looks at whether the Platform has met the three specific objectives that flow from that - to provide a common forum for exchange among stakeholders, generate specific actions in key areas and produce evidence and know-how through monitor-ing.

Although the report says that, "the Platform has also led to a better understanding among members from different sectors, no-tably through a dialogue that has become more constructive and less confrontational over the years," it also recognises "there is still an element of confrontation between for-profit and not-for-profit members, and the enhanced understanding has not necessarily translated into greater trust."

The report underlines that a key difference between the Platform and other European or national fora is the focus on action to pre-vent it become a mere talking shop. Each member must sign up to at least one active commitment, which seeks to further the goals of the Platform. Then they must make sure they live up to that commitment, through action and independent monitoring.

Members have tabled a total of 292 commit-ments since the Platform's launch in 2005. The majority of actions fall within the 'Lifestyles and education' area, but the re-port says that a considerable number of commitments have also been made in the other three areas, namely marketing and advertising, reformulation, and labelling.

The report says that it is not possible to draw any definitive conclusions on the Plat-form's impact on policy at the European or national level, "but it appears to be very limited, as very few tangible examples of the Platform's impact on nutrition and physical activity (NPA) policy or other policy areas were found." As a result the report recommends that communication about the

The EU Platform for Diet,

Physical Activity and Health

was evaluated

(continued on page 12)

t h e e u r o p e a n d i a b e t e s n e w s l e t t e r

The EU Platform for Diet, Physical Activity and Health was

evaluated (continued from page 11)

P a g e 1 2

Chaussée de La Hulpe, 166-C3

B-1170, Brussels, Belgium

Phone: +32 25371889

Fax: +32 25371981

E-mail: newsletter@idf-europe.org

International Diabetes Federation

- European Region

“the european diabetes newsletter” is an

internal publication edited by IDF Europe using

the contributions of the member organizations

and collaborators. If you would like to contrib-

ute with articles or news to our newsletter

please write to Cristian Andriciuc, External Rela-

tions coordinator cristian@idf-europe.org .

For comments or more information about IDF

Europe activities please contact us at one of the

address posted.

Platform and its activities, as well as contact and cooperation with national authorities and national platforms, be increased.

The next steps that will be taken by the members of the Platform and the EU Commis-sion will be discussed during the meeting in September. [from the eNews of the EU Commission]

involved in healthcare and prevention activities for adults

at risk of developing type 2 diabetes. This includes those working in primary and specialised healthcare services,

physicians, physical activity experts, dieticians, nurses,

and also others planning or already involved in diabetes

prevention interventions (e.g. teachers, business part-

ners). The IMAGE Toolkit for diabetes prevention also

provides useful information for local and national politi-

cians and health policy makers interested in creating an

environment which facilitates healthy ageing and the im-

plementation of the WHO recommendation that “we must

make the healthy choice the easy choice.” One may find

in the document how to budget and finance a prevention

programme, how to identify people at risk, how to change

behaviours, what are the risks, or how to evaluate a pre-

vention programme. The document may be downloaded

in electronic format from

www.activeindiabetesprevention.com or hard copies may

be requested from the office of IDF Europe.

Office news in brief (continued from page 2)