Africa

Dakar — D-Foot Sub-Saharan African regional meeting, October 2019

The D-Foot Sub-Saharan African regional  meeting took place in Dakar, Senegal, from 24-26 October, jointly with the IDF Africa and Société Francophone Africaine de Diabétologie et d’Endocrinologie (SFADE) training, which is organised every 2 years for GPs and paramedics. 

The meeting gathered 156 participants from 7 French-speaking African countries: Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania and Senegal. 

This was the opportunity to train participants on the diabetic foot wounds and healing.

A large part was dedicated to prevention and early diagnosis of mechanisms leading to foot ulcers.

D-Foot President José Luis Lázaro Martínez's address was highly appreciated, especially the fact that he pointed out the need to take Africa’s specificities and special context into consideration in the elaboration of guidelines. 

At the end of the meeting, top priorities and barriers to proper foot care in Africa were identified. In summary

Main Barriers :

• Limited financial resources and infrastructures for diabetes in general and footcare in particular
• Lack of diabetes specialists, and no podiatrist at all in SSA 
• Difficulties to disseminate and implement guidelines that are not adapted to our context

Priorities : 

• Data collection
• Advocacy directed to
  • patients for awareness-raising and adoption of preventative measures
  • healthcare professionals for early diagnosis and referral
  • decision-makers 
• Collaborative approach to adopt local solutions for diabetic foot management