United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, and World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, have announced that a Global Diabetes Compact will be launched on 14 April 2021 to mark the 100-year anniversary of the discovery of insulin for the treatment of diabetes. The centenary offers a window of opportunity for the global diabetes community to come together to reflect on addressing barriers to accessing insulin and associated health technology products. It is an opportune time to forge a common vision among all stakeholders to develop a multisectoral plan of action to address these barriers and ensure that no person living with diabetes goes untreated.
The WHO Department of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCD), in collaboration with the Division of Medicines and Health Products, is convening a series of biannual dialogues with the private sector to define meaningful and effective contributions to the implementation of national responses for the prevention, management and control of NCDs and the attainment of related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets. The dialogues will focus on mobilizing commitments and contributions by the private sector toward national NCD responses to achieve SDG targets 3.4, 3.8 and 3b by improving access to and affordability of safe, effective and quality-assured medicines and health technology products.
Improving access to medicines and health technology products for the diagnosis, management and treatment of diabetes is multi-faceted and part of a broader challenge of ensuring access to health care. It requires a robust health system which includes good leadership and governance, adequate financing, access to information and evidence, quality service delivery, a strong health workforce, and equitable access to essential medicines and health technology products of assured quality, safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness. Effective interventions will require enhanced collaboration and commitment for greater impact at country-level. The first dialogue in the series, which is being held on 23-24 February 2021, will focus on improving access to human insulin and associated health technology products for diabetes as part of the Global Diabetes Compact. Subsequent dialogues will focus on other NCDs, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, lung diseases, oral health, rehabilitation, sensory impairments and disability.
This first dialogue aims to encourage inputs, commitments, and contributions from the pharmaceutical and health technology product industries to support WHO’s activities to improve access to medicines and health technology products for diabetes, including for the 14 April 2021 launch of the Global Diabetes Compact.
Dialogue objectives
- Provide an update on progress in the prevention and management of NCDs with a special focus on diabetes as part of the WHO Global Compact on Diabetes and initiatives to improve access to diabetes medicines and associated health technology products ̶ major barriers, challenges, opportunities and solutions.
- Strengthening the collaboration between WHO, intergovernmental agencies, and non- state actors in accordance with the Framework of Engagement with Non-State Actors (FENSA) in a meaningful way towards the development of contributions and commitments by the relevant private sector entities to improve access to insulin and associated health technology products for diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of diabetes.
- Discuss a preliminary draft set of WHO Secretariat asks for the pharmaceutical and associated technology product industries.
- Discuss an approach to register the contribution of the pharmaceutical and associated health technology products industry.
- Agree on achievements possible to improve access for people living with diabetes in 2021.
A summary report of this meeting will be available on this website after the meeting.