World Diabetes Day
Date: 14 November 2007
Place: Worldwide
World Diabetes Day is celebrated annually on 14 November. Last year, in recognition of the chronic, debilitating and costly nature of the disease, the United Nations made World Diabetes Day an official UN day. This new status increases the visibility of diabetes as an important global public health problem that requires urgent attention from policy-makers and health planners around the world.
The theme of this year's World Diabetes Day is diabetes in children and adolescents. The International Diabetes Federation and WHO chose this theme to draw attention to the fact that diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases of childhood. About 70 000 children under the age of 15 are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes every year, according to International Diabetes Federation estimates.