Saudi researcher's website wins award for raising diabetes awareness

Al-Motair's diabetes online portal can be found on the web at www.dmeducation.com. In accepting his award, Al-Motair said that he developed the website to provide highly reliable and specialized information on diabetes for Arabic audiences.

"There was a huge gap in the understanding of diabetes especially among Arabs, so I developed this website to hopefully provide useful information that people can easily access to increase their awareness and understanding of diabetes,"

Al-Motair added.

Al-Motair's website could help address this problem by increasing awareness in Saudi about diabetes, including its causes and methods of treatment and prevention, as most of diabetes websites are non Arabic and unspecialized.

On a daily basis, Diabetes Network and Forum gets about 25,000 visits and the total number of visitors has reached 3.5m since it was launched. The site's forum has more than 20 thousand members from all the Arab countries and the number is increasing daily.

The site also aims to promote a healthy environment for diabetics and to discuss their daily concerns and exchange their experiences. In addition, the site places a strong emphasis on having a healthy lifestyle to help prevent the incidence of diabetes, including engaging in regular physical exercises and eating healthy balanced food for all. The site is a reliable source for news and all related diabetes matters."

Al-Motair expressed his thanks and appreciation to Sanofi-aventis for their support to the site and the award they have bestowed on the site. "It is certainly an inspiration for all of us, and a wonderful reward for the harword that I and my team have put into it," he added.

From the onset, Al-Motair has envisioned a website that will make a difference, in the lives of diabetic patients and their families, as well as the general public who could benefit through prevention. "The main idea that I would like to convey is that diabetes is a disease that patients can live with, and in the meantime people can protect themselves from it. Being a diabetic does not mean the inevitability of suffering of its complications; to the contrary diabetic can live a normal life through following some simple things."

For his part, Dr. Issa Dhafiri, member of the jury that deliberated on the awards, said: "The Sanofi-aventis award is dedicated to encourage researchers in the area of diabetes to find new ways for comprehensive treatment of this disease that benefit physicians, nurses, patients and health educators."

He commended the Diabetes Network and Forum for being an excellent source of information and a platform for meaningful exchange of experience between diabetic patients across the Arab region. "The site is full of useful and new information about diabetes including new researches, treatment and all that matters to diabetics. The site also is easy to deal with and attracts large number of visitors," Dr. Dhafiri continued.

On the other hand, Dr. Saleh Al-Jasir, Head of Diabetics Care Programs in the National Guard, praised the idea of Bader Al-Motair for creating of such webstie for raising awareness and education about diabetes and said:"Winning such international award represents the high level of health care provided by the Health Affairs in the National Guard for the community."

He further assured that the idea of creating a website for educating people about diabetes comes in the framework of healthcare providers and officials, including HE Dr. Bandar Al-Kinawi, Executive Director of Health Affairs in the National Guard.

This award is part of Sanofi-aventis development and follow-up initiative program to monitor follow-up diabetes around the world, which aims to devote views and works of highly specialized doctors around the world in order to provide better healthcare diabetics in the Middle East.