Posted April 6, 2016

 

Randolph Health Medical Group Celebrates World Health Day, April 7

 

World Health Day is a global health awareness day celebrated every year on April 7, under the sponsorship of the World Health Organization (WHO). In 1948, the WHO held the First World Health Assembly. The Assembly decided to celebrate April 7 of each year, effective in 1950, as World Health Day. World Health Day is held to mark WHO's founding, and is seen as an opportunity by the organization to draw worldwide attention to a subject of major importance to global health each year.

The main goals of the World Health Day 2016 campaign are to increase awareness about the rise in diabetes, and its staggering burden and consequences – in particular in low- and middle-income countries – and to trigger a set of specific, effective and affordable actions to tackle diabetes. These will include steps to prevent diabetes, and diagnose, treat and care for people with diabetes.

There are two main forms of the diabetes. People with type 1 diabetes typically make none of their own insulin and therefore require insulin injections to survive. People with type 2 diabetes, the form that comprises some 90% of cases, usually produce their own insulin, but not enough or they are unable to use it properly. People with type 2 diabetes are typically overweight and sedentary, two conditions that raise a person’s insulin needs.

Over time, high blood sugar can seriously compromise every major organ system in the body, causing heart attacks, strokes, nerve damage, kidney failure, blindness, impotence and infections that can lead to amputations.

World Health Day 2016: Key Messages

WHO is focusing World Health Day, on April 7, 2016, on diabetes to scale up prevention, strengthen care and enhance surveillance.

The main goals of the World Health Day 2016 campaign will be to:

 

• Increase awareness about the rise in diabetes, and its staggering burden and consequences, in particular in low-and middle-income countries.

• Trigger a set of specific, effective and affordable actions to tackle diabetes. These will include steps to prevent diabetes and diagnose, treat and care for people with diabetes.

• Launch the first Global report on diabetes, which will describe the burden and consequences of diabetes and advocate for stronger health systems to ensure improved surveillance, enhanced prevention, and more effective management of diabetes.

Important Information on Diabetes