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April 2014 |
Kingston-based Trinidad-born Professor Dalip Ragoobirsingh has been invited to be a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines development expert group. Dr Ragoobirsingh, a graduate, of The UWI, is Professor of Medical Biochemistry and Diabetology, as well as Director of the UWI (Mona) Diabetes Education Programme. The Jamaica Observer reported that Dr Ragoobirsingh's appointment followed his publication in the prestigious British Medical Journal, based on a study done in collaboration with the Florida International University and with the blessings of the Ministries of Education and Health on 276 Jamaican adolescents aged 14-19 years, randomly selected from grades nine to 12 from 10 high schools on the island and including both genders. The study showed that Jamaican adolescents are at risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases, with females being at greater risk than their male counterparts. It recommended that intervention measures are needed to educate Jamaican adolescents to reduce overweight and subsequently the risk factors. Prof Ragoobirsingh, a Rhodes Trust scholar, was previously invited to Geneva in 2008 to advise WHO on its Peers in Progress programme for the treatment of diabetes mellitus. This followed his sabbatical attachment, as a Fulbright Scholar, to the Unit of Non-communicable Diseases of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) headquarters in Washington DC. He subsequently served as technical advisor to the PAHO project on Improvement Initiatives for Diabetes Management in the Caribbean. The latter included 10 territories: Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Lucia, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. The specific goal of this project was to achieve real and sustained improvements in diabetes care in these countries. The Caribbean now benefits from 14 technical reports, a major PAHO collaborative manual on diabetes education and the Caribbean Chronic Disease Passport, a patient-held medical record, which were developed out of this exercise. |
