THE UMBRIA-CLUJ PROGRAM - PRESENT STATUS

The Umbria Cluj twinning programme was established according to the Vi ncent Declaration (SVD) Action Programme which foresees planned collab oration between designated centers for the implementation of the SVD r ecommendations. Under the auspices of the WHO-EURO and IDF-EURO, a twi nning programme between the Diabetes Center and Clinic, Cluj Napoca (R omania) and the Institute of Internal Medicine and Endocrine and Metab olic Sciences, Perugia (Umbria, Italy) was established in 1992. The ai m of this programme is to facilitate the regional implementation of th e SVD in Cluj County which comprises 586,446 inhabitants. The programm e involves 5 diabetes units, 51 diabetes teams each with a general pra ctitioner involved in diabetes care but only 12 of thein trained in di abetology. There are 5 major goals in this Programme: 1) Epidemiology of diabetes mellitus (DM - actual prevalence 2.54%). 2) Improvement of diabetes treatment, control and quality of life according to the DIAB CARE Initiative (the Basic Information Sheet has been completed for 31 5 patients to date), 3) Implementation and evaluation of regular educa tion programmes (5-day courses), 4) Prevention and treatment of compli cations (amputations, blindness), and 5. Identification of risk factor s for coronary heart disease in Syndrome X (300 patients investigated to date, 69 with Type I DM and 231 with Type II DM.)