World Diabetes Day (WDD) is marked every year on 14 November, the birthday of Sir Frederick Banting, who co-discovered insulin along with Charles Best in 1922.
Every year, the World Diabetes Day campaign focuses on a dedicated theme that runs for one or more years. The theme for World Diabetes Day 2021-23 is Access to Diabetes Care.
To mark World Diabetes Day 2022 the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) has launched a global survey to explore the levels of access that healthcare professionals and people living with diabetes have to diabetes education.
WDD was created in 1991 by the International Diabetes Federation and the World Health Organisation in response to growing concerns about the escalating health threat posed by diabetes.
World Diabetes Day became an official United Nations Day in 2006 and is now the world’s largest diabetes awareness campaign reaching a global audience of over 1 billion people in more than 160 countries.
The campaign draws attention to issues of paramount importance to the diabetes world and keeps diabetes firmly in the public and political spotlight.
The World Diabetes Day campaign aims to be the:
- Platform to promote IDF advocacy efforts throughout the year.
- Global driver to promote the importance of taking coordinated and concerted actions to confront diabetes as a critical global health issue
The campaign is represented by a blue circle logo that was adopted in 2007 after the passage of the UN Resolution on diabetes.
The blue circle is the global symbol for diabetes awareness. It signifies the unity of the global diabetes community in response to the diabetes epidemic.
