Lilly NCD Partnership Fighting Diabetes in India

Our guest blogger is Professor D. Prabhakaran, Director of the Centre for Chronic Disease Control at the Public Health Foundation of India, a public-private initiative to find collaborative solutions to India’s public health challenges. PHFI is a lead partner in the Lilly NCD Partnership in India.

India has the second highest population of diabetics in the world, second only to China according to new data released by the International Diabetes Federation. Higher incomes, more sedentary lifestyles, diets heavy in starches and sugars, and rising rates of high blood pressure are all fueling the spread of the disease. Today, we have about 65 million individuals with diabetes, but that number is projected to swell to 109 million by around 2030.

Despite the availability of effective treatments and proven prevention strategies, diabetes detection and control rates remain unacceptably low. This is a great challenge – and also a great opportunity. An interdisciplinary approach that addresses all of the factors in a comprehensive and integrated fashion could be a powerful weapon against the disease, and provide the basis for a national program to treat and prevent diabetes and other chronic diseases.

This is precisely what we are working to achieve through the Lilly NCD Partnership. Together with our partners on the ground – Population Services International India and Project HOPE India – we are developing a program called UDAY (which means dawn or sunrise in Hindi) to help prevent, detect, reduce the risk of diabetes, as well as hypertension, and improve management of individuals and patients with these conditions.

Ream more about Lilly's steps to help fight diabetes in India.