The Rotary Club of St Augustine is a major sponsor of the work of the Diabetes Education Research and Prevention Institute (DERPI). DERPI launched their DO campaign today which encourages pregnant women to get tested for diabetes. Diabetes can cause severe complications during pregnancy and most times can only be detected by medical testing.
 
Diabetes is the most common metabolic disorder in pregnant women. There are 20,000 pregnancies in Trinidad and Tobago every year. 1 in 5 pregnancies is complicated by diabetes.
 
The DO campaign, which is an initiative of DERPI, seeks to encourage all stakeholders to work towards instituting diabetes testing for every pregnancy in our country. Diabetes prevention at the stage of foetal development is the only way to arrest the increasing numbers of diabetic cases that we are experiencing in Trinidad and Tobago.
 
The Rotary Club of St Augustine is proud to be associated with this project. In 2014 we contributed to the project and in 2015 we applied for and received a Rotary District Grant to assist with the further development of this project.
 
Professor Teelucksingh of DERPI (left) and Gary Williams, President of Rotary Club of St Augustine