Local statistics show that over two million Filipinos are afflicted with diabetes. Sadly, a majority of the patients and their families know little or nothing about this deadly disease.
With the alarming increase in the number of diabetics in the country, Pfizer Inc. and the Philippine Association of Diabetes Educators (PADE) decided to team up and develop the PADE-Pfizer Diabetes-Friendly School Project, an initiative that aims to provide proper diabetes education that will help Filipino diabetics live full and productive lives.
Made possible through a financial grant by Pfizer Foundation in New York and Pfizer Philippines and done in partnership with local schools, the PADE-Pfizer Diabetes-Friendly School Project aims to promote awareness, management and prevention of diabetes. While diabetes is a serious disease, which is becoming increasingly common, there are ways of preventing it and/or controlling its progress. The project hopes to increase public and professional awareness of the risk factors and symptoms of diabetes and subsequently, lead to its prevention and control.
To seal the partnership, a memorandum of agreement was recently signed by Rey Gerardo E. Bacarro, President & Country Manager of Pfizer, Inc. and Dr. Elizabeth Ann Fernando-Catindig, President of PADE at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel. Present during the MOA signing were Dr. Josefina Tuazon, PADE Vice-President and Project Coordinator; Dr. Anthony C. Leachon, Pfizer's Medical Director; Dr. Ricardo E. Fernando, Chairman of the Institute for Studies on Diabetes Foundation (ISDF) and Pateros Mayor Rosendo T. Capco, who gave an acceptance speech on behalf of Pateros, the project's pilot area.
PADE is an organization composed of physicians, nurses, nutritionists and educators whose main objective is to educate the Filipino people about diabetes, its prevention and management.
Pfizer is a global research-based healthcare company that discovers, develops, manufactures and markets innovative medicines for humans and animals, and many of the world's best-known consumer products.
