The World Health Organisation has released a new publication for Prevention and control of NCDs: Guidelines for primary health care in low-resource settings. These guidelines provide recommendations on the diagnosis and management of type 2 diabetes and the management of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in primary health care in low-resource settings. The target users are health care professionals responsible for developing the protocols which will be used by health care staff in primary care units in low-resource settings.
The primary goal of the guideline is to improve the quality of care and the outcome in people with type 2 diabetes in low-resource settings. It recommends a set of basic interventions to integrate management of diabetes into primary health care. It will serve as basis for development of simple algorithms for use by health care staff in primary care in low-resource settings, to reduce the risk of acute and chronic complications of diabetes. The guideline was developed by a group of external and WHO experts, following the WHO process of guideline development. GRADE methodology was used to assess the quality of evidence and decide the strength of the recommendations.