- Pharma company AstraZeneca has initiated a diabetes awareness drive by signing an MoU with RSSDI.
- ‘Beyond Sugar’, a three-year patient awareness program.
- The program aims to benefit over 1 crore people with diabetes across the country.
THD NewsDesk, London: On November 27, global biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca India signed an MoU with the Research Society for Study of Diabetes in India. AstraZeneca and RSSDI have collaborated to initiate an awareness campaign on diabetes – Beyond Sugar.
The 3-year awareness drive aims to make diabetes patients aware of diabetes care and the related complications of the illness. The programme plans to benefit over 1 crore people suffering from diabetes across the country.
“The purpose of this collaboration between AstraZeneca and RSSDI is to leverage technology to connect the doctor and the patient to provide authentic information. The partnership will go a long way in supporting patient-centric digital awareness campaigns and programs to raise awareness about diabetes and its complications so that they can act early to manage or even prevent the complications,” said Dr Anil Kukreja, Vice President – Medical Affairs & Regulatory, AstraZeneca India.
While speaking on the digital initiative, Dr Kukreja said, “Face-to-face meetings do have their unique advantages of connecting, but the kind of reach which we can have through digital medium and the education you can drive through digital have their own advantages. We have seen digital initiatives getting a lot of traction.”
Elaborating on the significance of this campaign, Dr Saboo, President- RSSDI and Organising Chairman said,
“In the COVID era, this digitally-powered initiative will also empower patients/caregivers to have better conversations with their doctors about the disease and make informed decisions in the management of diabetes. All this will culminate towards shifting from the glucose centric management approach towards a holistic and an early Cardio-Renal focused management of type 2 diabetes”.
Further, Dr Saboo said,
“We are mainly looking from the heart point of view as 2/3rd of our diabetic patients develop cardiovascular and kidney-related complications, which are very much neglected. If patients are well educated and screened early, we can prevent these complications”.
AstraZeneca strives to enable diabetes patients and their caregivers and initiate a dialogue through digital means. Moreover, the program empowers the doctors treating such patients to make informed decisions about the management of the disease.
Source: ET Healthworld
