Regional Webinar on World Diabetes Day 2025

Background

Globally, an estimated 830 million people are living with diabetes, and nearly 2 million deaths are directly attributed to the condition each year. Diabetes mellitus is a major public health challenge in the WHO South-East (SE) Asia Region. An estimated 276 million adults aged 18 years and above are living in the SE Asia region with diabetes as per Global Health Estimates, 2022. Alarmingly, more than 70% of those with diabetes remain undiagnosed and approximately 177 million not receiving treatment. Moreover, the Region is experiencing an increasing prevalence of type 2 diabetes driven by lifestyle and demographic changes.  Early diagnosis and management of type 1 diabetes and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) remain key challenges.

The ‘Colombo Call to Action: Strengthening prevention and control of diabetes in the WHO South-East Asia Region’ was endorsed during the Regional Commemoration of World Diabetes Day, identifying catalytic actions to achieve global diabetes coverage targets. The countries responded to the Call to Action through SEAHEARTS interventions to integrate diabetes screening at the primary health care (PHC) level, and the scaling-up of digital tools for early detection but continue to face gaps in access to essential medicines and technologies (including insulin, oral drugs, and glucose monitoring devices) to sustain continuity of care and in digital health information systems to track patient outcomes.

The theme proposed for World Diabetes Day for 2025 is ‘Diabetes across life stages’ providing an opportunity to bring together programme managers, clinicians, researchers, civil society, and people living with diabetes to discuss strategies for strengthening integrated diabetes care throughout the life course. The webinar will highlight key concern of WHO SE Asia Region, including approaches to scale up and improve quality of service delivery at primary health care, integration of services with infectious diseases and maternal and child health services, and screening and management of diabetes complications.

Objectives

1. To discuss strategies for strengthening the health system response to diabetes, drawing on learnings from the SEAHEARTS implementation over the past two years.
2. To identify opportunities and enablers to improve detection and management of diabetes complications at the primary health care level.
3. To explore approaches for integrating and improving diabetes prevention and care across the life course, with a particular focus on addressing the needs of children, adolescents with type 1 diabetes, and women during pregnancy (gestational diabetes mellitus)