Influenza Diabetes Community

People with diabetes face a higher risk for influenza and its complications and national and international guidelines advise that diabetes patients be annually vaccinated against influenza. The attention for the impact of influenza on diabetes patients, however, is low and so is the vaccine uptake in this group. In October 2017 leading diabetes organisations and the European Scientific Working Group on Influenza (ESWI) joined forces to forge an active Influenza-Diabetes Community (IDC) to raise awareness of the impact of influenza on people living with diabetes. The IDC is a unique community that has continued to grow and expand its membership. ESWI serves as its Secretariat and IDC is chaired by ESWI Board Member, Marco Goeijenbier. The IDC has been supported by Sanofi Pasteur since its inception and an outreach towards coalition partners and relevant stakeholders is also part of IDC activities. The IDC is open to new supporters and members that share the IDC vision and mission. Annual work plans include regular, quarterly meetings with invited guest lectures, overviews of recently published scientific articles and discussions and exchanges among Community members of best practices, campaigns, and webinars. VISION Optimal care for, and prevention of, respiratory virus infections in people living with diabetes.

MISSION To increase awareness within the care community of the burden of influenza, COVID-19 and RSV in people living with diabetes. To ensure access to care, and to ensure the translation of scientific data supporting clinical recommendations for effective protection from infection and disease, including non-pharmaceutical measures, vaccination and anti-viral treatment.

INFLUENZA DIABETES COMMUNITY

IDC Member Meetings

Three quarterly member meetings were held in May, September and December, with one invited guest lecturer per meeting. In May, Dr Kirsty Short, Australian research fellow at the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences at the University of Queensland, presented her research on using glycaemic variability as an early marker. At the September meeting Associate Professor Felix Wensveen, Department for Histology and Embryology University of Rijeka, Faculty of Medicine presented his research on Type 2 Diabetes and infection and interactions between immune & endocrine systems during viral infection. Our invited speaker at the December meeting was Bram Palache, a Member of the Editorial Board for the #TogetherAgainstFlu campaign. The mission of the campaign has been and continues to be to achieve a long-term mindset change towards the risk-perception of influenza and an increased and sustainable uptake of immunisation rates to take full advantage of its benefits.

INFLUENZA DIABETES COMMUNITY

Influenza Diabetes Community

Community members

PGEU GPUE

Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union Groupement Pharmaceutique de L’Union Européenne

A dedicated website serves as a virtual reference centre for data and news on diabetes and influenza and other respiratory virus infections. It contains web materials of ESWI’s partners in the Influenza-Diabetes Community on, i.a.the importance of vaccines and risk prevention.

www.influenzadiabetescommunity.org