By Ibrahim Ogaily special to the Levant News

Riyadh - The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia launched this week the first Saudi Health Economics and Policy Experts Dialogue. The two-day dialogue falls under the umbrella of the Saudi Scientific Diabetes Society.

This initiative is the first of its kind in the field of economics, managing diabetes and its complications. It aims to adopt a clear mechanism and specific criteria for evaluating diabetes medications within the framework of the Kingdom's Vision 2030.

The congress was attended by more than 300 healthcare professionals and more than 40 speakers and experts from inside and outside the country. In the sessions over 20 scientific papers were discussed that shed its light on the concept of partnership between the different health sectors in the field of treating diabetes. The contributing factors that increase the therapeutic efficiencies and rationalization of the accompanying expenses were also on the agenda.

Professor Abdulrahman Alshaikh, the President of the Saudi Scientific Diabetes Society, spoke about the importance of addressing the gap represented by the lack of highly efficient evaluation platforms in the field of managing the costs of diabetes treatments in health facilities.

"Diabetes is the most common disease and it is one of the biggest causes of death among the population in the Kingdom. And the cost of controlling diabetes and its complications is one of the most burdens faced when choosing innovative and most appropriate treatments for patients, especially since the evaluation and comparison of different medicines is based on the direct cost of the medication and therapeutic properties together," he said.

For his part, Dr. Saud Alsifri, member of the scientific committee of the congress, stressed that this scientific movement organized and sponsored by the Saudi Scientific Diabetes Society is just an extension of the ambitious plan launched by the Saudi leadership, Vision 2030 and the National Transformation 2020 program.