• Submitted by: manso
• Society
• 11 / 15 / 2010

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By: Odalys Cimadevilla Valdes. 11/12/2010. Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is today a growing health concern for both the developed and underdeveloped world. Three hundred million people have diabetes and it’s predicted that in the next 20 years the total of sick persons will surpass the 400 millions.

The figures send the alarm off. Every year seven million individuals develop the diabetes. Every year 3,8 million deaths are attributed to diabetes. Every 10 seconds a person dies for causes related with diabetes. Every 10 seconds two people get sick. It’s the fourth death cause for by illness worldwide.

The education and prevention of diabetes is the topic of the World Diabetes Day (November 14) for the period 2009-2013. The campaign makes a call to all those responsible for diabetic attention to understand the illness and take control.

The World Diabetes Day (WDD) is the awareness campaign on the most important disease worldwide. It was established by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1991, in response to the alarming increase of diabetes cases around the world. In 2007, the United Nations celebrated this date for the first time after the approval of the Resolution in December 2006, which changed the status to an official day of health of the UN to the existent WDD.

The diabetes is difficult. It’s an illness that imposes certain lifetime demands to millions of people who live with it as well as their families. People with diabetes are responsible for the 95% of the attention they need and it’s extremely important that they receive a continuous diabetic education of high quality according to their needs provided by competent professionals of health.

Cuba: Low Mortality Rate

Cuba is not exempt to the incidence of diabetes, one of the main threats to health and the human development today. The number of Cubans with this pathology reaches the half million.

Cuba is the country of America, including the United States and the Hispanic Caribbean, with the lowest mortality rate for diabetes, 10,3 for every hundred thousand inhabitants, as a result of the health programs against the disease applied in the island.

This achievement is thanks to the programs put in practice, among them, that of Diabetes and Pregnancy; the creation in the entire country of Centers of Attention to the Diabetic (CAD), and the educational work with children, adolescents, and relatives. These programs elevate the patients’ quality of life, with an education to learn how to live with diabetes, and to guarantee the attention in health centers, from the primary level until the specialized centers.

Together with the above-mentioned there are well-trained health personnel and paramedics who assist these sick people. Those patients who might suffer the disease are investigated as well as people with relatives of first generation diabetics, the mothers who have had large fetuses and other symptomatologies.

The low mortality rate reached in Cuba is the result of this preventive and assistance work, while in other countries it reaches up to 80 deaths for every 100 000 inhabitants.

Heberprot-P: One of a Kind Product

The most frequent complications in Diabetes Mellitus are the ulcers of the diabetic foot, where Cuba has huge experience in the use of HEBERPROT-P - of domestic production and unique in the world - applied in patient with such ailments.

The ulcer of diabetic foot is a significant source of morbility and mortality in diabetics and a significant number of these patients don't respond well to traditional treatments.

This Cuban product - a human-recombinant epidermal growth factor – it’s an injectable drug, developed by the Cuban Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, for the treatment of that type of ulcer, which has been registered in Cuba since 2006 and, later on, applied in 125 countries like Argentina, Algeria, Venezuela, Ecuador, Uruguay, Vietnam, Angola, among others.

It has granted patent of the product to China, United States, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, India, Indonesia, Ukraine, South Africa and the nations of the European Union.

Since April 2007 it’s included in the national basic stock of medications and in June of that same year it began its sale all over the country. It has been applied to more than 18 thousand patients (more than 12 000 of them from Venezuela and almost five thousand Cubans), with satisfactory results.

It’s a powerful agent that is administered locally, in liquid form, three times per week. It stimulates the formation of useful tissue to allow the closing of lesions and favors the scaring of complicated ulcers, caused by the diabetes in lower extremities, it contributes to the reduction of surgical interventions and to save the extremity.

Heberprot-P will soon be put into practice in the European Union, in Spain in 18 centers, and in the United States, while the Cuban scientists continue the investigations with this drug to be used in other illnesses.


There isn’t another product to treat the lesions of the diabetic foot like Heberprot-P, which was created in a Third World country. The recently finished International Congress of Biotechnology 2010 was dedicated to this new biopharmaceutical, with headquarters in the Conventions Palace of Havana and in which participated around 150 specialists from 22 countries.

Cubasi Translation Staff