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• 11 / 15 / 2008

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A Granma report on the World Diabetes Day says some 70,000 children below the age of 15 contract the disease each year in the world, several of whom die because of a lack of proper medical attention.

Around 1,000 Cuban children have diabetes type 1 which requires medication with insulin; each year some 70 new cases are reported. These children are treated by specialists in Pediatrics Endocrinology, and they and their families receive education on how to live with this chronic disease.

Patients also receive specialized food and insulin at subsidized prices. For example, a bulb of 1,000 units that usually sells for between 16 and 25 dollars in other countries costs around four cents in Cuba, the doctor told Granma.

There is one Diabetes Care Center in the capital city of each of the fourteen provinces across the island. The centers are staffed with doctors, nurses, educators, psychologists, dieticians, physical education teachers, chiropodists and other specialists.

Dr. Diaz also spoke about several other programs for children with diabetes such as summer camps and year round educational visits to hospitals by the patient and their parents.

Cuban specialists have raised the alarm over a recent increase in diabetes type 2 (which doesn’t require insulin) in children caused primarily by early obesity.

November 14 is the birthday of Frederick Banting, the Canadian doctor, physiologist and Nobel Prize Laureate who along with several colleagues discovered insulin in 1921.

(Adelante.cu)