Visions of Development is a section promoted by CAF—development bank of Latin America—that discusses the region’s main development issues. Its articles are published simultaneously in the main media outlets around Latin America.
Fighting the Diabetes Pandemic with Technology
October 13, 2021
About 41 million people in Latin America and 400 million in the world currently have diabetes. That number continues to grow over time, to an estimated 68 million diabetics in the region by 2040.
“Diabetes, which was the pandemic we were all talking about before COVID-19, poses a challenge to health systems and a threat to their financial sustainability,” says María Jesús Salido, CEO of Social Diabetes, a startup that provides a mobile application that uses various digital tools for monitoring and analysis of diabetic patients, intended to help improve quality of life for more than 1 million people over the next 2 years.
According to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), diabetes is one of the major health challenges in the twenty-first century. Data from the organization indicate that the number of people suffering from this condition will reach 642 million worldwide by 2040. One of the advantages of this solution is that it allows patients to stay in contact with a remote healthcare professional, thus avoiding the need to go to a healthcare center and reducing the chances of contracting COVID-19 in this high risk group.
“We believe that managing diabetes depends more on patients than on the system. Thus, if we wish to speed up response times, we need to deliver this technology to patients and digitalize therapy in order to have users themselves make intelligent use of this data and health systems, and in turn, contribute and assist through all the data generated,” added Salido.
The use of this platform gives patients and doctors a broader overview of the data produced during patient care and glucose and insulin monitoring, while expediting processes. “Before using the app, I didn’t have the insulin calculation at hand. I made note of it all elsewhere or in a notebook. Of course, having to take out the notebook every time was probably a bit tedious. Now I have the benefit of always knowing how much insulin I have left in my body at all times, just to give one example” , said Carlos Soto, a 31-year-old patient from Chile.
Social Diabetes is a startup with offices in Barcelona, London and Mexico City, a leader in digital solutions and one of the most prestigious platforms in the Hispanic market and globally for diabetes management. To expand coverage throughout the region and to improve the well-being of the population, CAF—development bank of Latin America—co-invested in this startup with the Venture Innovation Fund II (VIFII), managed by Mexico’s ALLVP.
This solution has a digital diabetes management platform consisting of two elements. A mobile application for smartphones that allows patients to keep diabetes under control, and thus, to have a more flexible and safer life. Meanwhile, the web-based platform allows healthcare professionals to remotely monitor patients and make use of data to deliver more personalized and efficient care.
“The app gives me an overall picture of how my child’s blood sugar is behaving”, noted Nasly Montoya, from Medellin, Colombia, a mother of a 9-year-old with type 1 diabetes. “This app allows us to download the reports for when we go to the doctor. This application has improved our quality of life and has been very positive for both me and my son.”
The application also has additional benefits in these COVID-19 pandemic times, when face-to-face consultations were impossible. “I can stay in touch with my doctor at all times, no matter where I am. Every time I record my glucose levels my doctor receives the information and this helps me make decisions on a day-to-day basis and not have to wait until my next visit to the doctor”, explains Erika Backhoff, a Mexican patient who has been living with type 1 diabetes since the age of 13. “In these times of pandemic where face-to-face consultations have become video calls, it has really helped me in making decisions.”
The world is facing an unprecedented global crisis in the health sector, and thus, it is important that we back the implementation of technological solutions, such as Social Diabetes, to work on regional growth together and continue supporting the millions of people living with this condition.
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