Test Strip Trouble

By Quinn Phillips Last week, an op-ed column by two doctors — one American, one Irish — was published in The New York Times. The authors describe an incident that occurred while they were working together at a remote, impoverished hospital in Haiti. A 12-year-old boy with Type 1 diabetes was brought in by his father, on the verge of death, in a state of diabetic ketoacidosis with his blood glucose levels off the charts due to an infection he had had for several days. Most people in Haiti cannot afford glucose meters and test strips, and the local health center nearest to the boy and father was out of test strips. Only when the boy's condition worsened did his father make the long, expensive trip to the district hospital, where the two doctors had only 10 test strips at their disposal to monitor his condition. They gave him insulin and flooded him with IV fluids, but it was too late; the boy died soon after arriving at the hospital. In the column, the doctors argue that the lack of a standard, "universal" test strip makes it nearly impossible for remote areas like theirs to have glucose meters and test strips that are compatible with one another. Universal test strips, they argue, would be cheaper and thus more widely available, allowing for blood glucose monitoring on a much greater scale in poor countries. There are, of course, many reasons why diabetes care is lacking in countries like Haiti, including the fact that most supplies are donated from rich countries...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - Category: Diabetes Authors: Source Type: blogs