Archives: Diabetes

Meet Sheila Sheila Chipenge is 14 years old, living with type 1 diabetes in rural Malawi. When Sheila first began to experience symptoms, she struggled to find an accurate diagnosis. She was finally diagnosed by Partners In Health’s sister organization in Malawi, Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo (APZU) in June 2014 and has been managing her […]

Meet Tigist Tigist Gebeyas is 20 years old and lives in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with her brother Lidetu and her parents. She began having seizures when she was nine years old, but it was unclear to her family and doctors what was causing them. Following a severe burn accident, additional tests diagnosed Lidetu with epilepsy. […]

Meet Estifanos Estifanos Balcha, now 20 years old, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was a young child living in Addis Ababa. For many years, Estifanos did not have consistent access to insulin and he severely struggled with managing his condition, doing so without family support and homeless for much of his childhood. […]

This perspective piece, published in New England Journal of Medicine in Dec 2016, challenges the health innovation community to address the following question: How would the quality of care delivery be affected if more diabetes technologies were designed with global contexts in mind?

Published by CRONICAS in 2014, this report identifies barriers to access to medication and care for patients with arterial hypertension and diabetes in Peru, and is a commentary on fostering responsive policies that strengthen the Peruvian health system.

With leadership from clinicians in Haiti and Rwanda, PIH is working to change the unjust realities that our diabetes patients face. This work was highlighted at the 2015 World Diabetes Congress in Vancouver, with several Haitian diabetes experts in attendance to present and share their experiences.

This article presents results from a program in western Kenya to facilitate peer-led diabetes self-management support (DSMS) groups, in order to better address psychosocial and patient education needs among patients with diabetes in that region. Collaborators include Duke Global Health Institute, Purdue University, and AMPATH in Eldoret, Kenya.

This commentary, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, outlines the imperative to extend global research, access to medicines, and care delivery efforts to better address the diabetes burden of the world’s poorest patients. The article also announces two current initiatives supported by Helmsley Charitable Trust, including PIH’s efforts to improve integrated diabetes care in Haiti and Rwanda.

In this article, authors discuss the interplay between diabetes and tuberculosis (TB) and advocates for the need for integrated health systems strategies that provide better clinical management for patients with concurrent diseases, focusing on drug-drug interactions, patient adherence, monitoring, education, and screening interventions.

This article presents findings from the USAID-AMPATH partnership to develop infrastructure to meet the growing need for diabetes care in rural Kenya, including efforts to provide hemoglobin A1C testing and point-of-care glucose testing supplies, as well as ensure reliable stocks of insulin for patients in low-resource settings.