The European Union and its member states are under increasing pressure to grant access to better and equal care to all children with diabetes in Europe.
The first call to action to improve diabetes management in European children was issued at the end of a dialogue held at the European Parliament between MEPs and diabetes experts from around Europe, members of the International Society of Paediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD) and the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) Europe.
The EP's call to action follows a United Nations resolution on diabetes, approved last year, encouraging member states to develop national healthcare policies for the prevention, treatment and care of diabetes. The IDF and the World Health Organisation (WHO) recently declared 2007 the Year of the Child and Adolescent with Diabetes, underlining the priority of the issue in young people.
Addressing MEPs, Chris Delicata, vice-president of the Malta Diabetes Association and also a board member of the International Diabetes Foundation, insisted on the need for more funds and energy to be dedicated to this important issue.
"Being a father of a child with diabetes, I can experience the 'ups' and 'downs' of childhood diabetes," Mr Delicata told MEPs.
"Diabetes is already a trauma for a mature or elderly person let alone for an innocent child and their parents or carers. The daily life of children is disrupted by the need to monitor blood glucose levels, take medication, and balance the effect of activity and food. Diabetes can interfere with the usual day to day tasks of childhood and adolescence, which include succeeding in school and transitioning to adulthood."
Type 1 diabetes - the most common type of this disease in children - accounts for over 90 per cent of diabetes cases in children and is an auto-immune disease that cannot yet be prevented. This type of diabetes is growing at the alarming rate of five per cent among pre-school children and three per cent in children and adolescents each year. It affects nearly 100,000 children in Europe.
Dr Thomas Ulmer, a German MEP leading this initiative, said that improving diabetes management in children is a major challenge that the EU can tackle by promoting better care and better education among healthcare professionals, patients and their carers across Europe.
He commented that a network of centres of excellence for paediatric diabetes could translate advances in science into everyday care by helping to share information and promote best practice at European level, encouraging the development of a minimum standard of care and facilitating the collection and monitoring of epidemiologic and economic data.
Labour MEP Joseph Muscat was present at the meeting.