Type 1 Diabetes

The YODA Project

Understanding the survival of patients with T1D in the absence of a reliable insulin supply

 

Student: Jean Claude Njabou Katte

Project Leads: Prof Eugene Sobngwi & Dr Angus Jones

 

Survival of patient with type 1 diabetes (T1D) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is often very poor. Frequent interruptions to insulin supplies are a likely key underlying reason for this. While a numbers of schemes exist to improve insulin supplies these provide patchy cover and are often limited to the young (< 25 years). Clinical observations in most countries in SSA show that survival is closely linked to ability to pay for insulin, but many surviving patients with apparent (and longstanding) type 1 diabetes are able to survive periods without insulin and may not have the ‘classical’ Type 1 diabetes with near absolute insulin deficiency (and so absolute insulin requirement) seen elsewhere.

This study aims to determine the relationship between survival in Type 1 diabetes in SSA populations (in Cameroon and Uganda) and retained endogenous insulin secretion and wealth. In addition this study will characterise Type 1 diabetes and establish a prospective recallable cohort to assist future studies of characterizing and optimising treatment of T1D in SSA.