The President of the Ghana Diabetes Associa-tion (GDA), Mrs Elizabeth Esi Denyoh has been elected Chairperson of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) for the Africa Region.
Mrs Denyoh was elected at the end of the 2022 World Congress of the IDF held in Lisbon Portu-gal where she contested with three other candidates from Senegal, Mauritania and Uganda.
She takes over from Profes-sor Jacque Abodo of La Cote D'Ivoire.
Speaking to the Ghanaian Times in Accra yesterday, Mrs Denyoh described her election as Africa's representative on the global or-ganisation as a "win for all Africa" adding that I promise to unite the continent towards the fight against diabetes that was a major cause of death in females in South Africa.
She said she would work with the African Union (AU) for gov-ernments to give waivers on taxes for diabetes consumables across the continent.
Similarly, Mrs Denyoh disclosed that she would work with Food and Drug Authorities (FDA) and Ministries of Heath in Africa to ensure that unwholesome diabetes drugs were eradicated from the system so that "we have high qual-ity standard medicines for diabetes on the African market.
According to the IDF Chair-person for Africa, she would engage giant pharmaceutical manufacturers including Pfizer and Gloxosmithkline to produce diabetes treatment drugs particu-larly Insulin on the continent.
As part of her vision for her four-year tenure, Mrs Denyoh said she would endeavour to ensure that the continent reduce the over dependence on donor funding for diabetes treatment to a system where "we can device mechanisms to become self-reliant in providing our own resources to treat our own citizens."
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Back home in Ghana, Mrs De-nyoh pledged to dialogue with all stakeholders to enhance diabetes treatment and bring hope to dia-betes patients.
"I wish to use my election as senior nurse to this great position as victory and urge all Ghana-ian nurses that there are more opportunities out there for nurses outside the hospital walls," she stated.
The International Diabetes Fed-eration is an umbrella organisation of over 230 national diabetes asso-ciations in 170 countries and ter-ritories representing the interests of the growing number of people with diabetes and those at risk.
The Federation has been leading the global diabetes community since 1950.
