South Africa: Media Invite – Picket at Novo Nordisk Headquarters

Join Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Southern Africa next week, Thursday as we demonstrate on Big Pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk

WHAT:

On World Diabetes Day on the 14^th of November 2024, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Southern Africa, along with 500 supporters from various organisations, will picket outside the offices of Novo Nordisk, in Sandton intensifying the call for them to drop the double standard in diabetes care and to reduce the cost of insulin pens to US$1 (approximately R17). Danish pharmaceutical corporation Novo Nordisk notified MSF and other stakeholders that it would soon discontinue the production of human insulin in pens' presumably so they can produce and sell more of their patented GLP-1 medicine for diabetes and obesity (marketed as Ozempic and Wegovy).

This business decision to prioritise profits over saving lives has had an adverse impact on South Africans living with diabetes where the South African government informed people living with diabetes to switch from using insulin pens to the least preferred insulin vials.

MSF has been calling for a sustainable supply of affordable insulin pens for people with diabetes in low- and middle-income countries including South Africa.

“Everyone living with diabetes deserves access to the highest standard of treatment and care. Novo Nordisk’s decision to limit insulin availability to vials in these countries promotes unequal standards of care between patients in high-income countries and those in low and middle-income countries,” says Candice Sehoma MSF Access Campaign Advocacy Advisor.

WHY:

Diabetes affects 4.2 million in South Africa, low and middle-income countries including South Africa have initiated a shift towards using insulin pens in the public sector, replacing traditional vials for all patients with diabetes since 2014. Transitioning patients to vials is a major setback to South Africa’s efforts to improve diabetes treatment.

“The main fear is having those vials break, what will I do if I don’t have? There’s no backup. Insulin is quite expensive,” says Letricia Gladys Roberts, T1 diabetes patient.

WHEN:

10:00 am, Thursday 14^th November 2024

WHERE:

150 Rivonia Road, 10 Marion St, Sandton

Spokespersons:

Candice Sehoma, MSF Access Campaign Advocacy Advisor

Dr. Helen Bygrave MSF Access Campaign Non-Communicable Diseases Advisor

Janice Barnes , T1-International

For interviews or queries, please contact:

Nkosi Mahlangu, ​ nkosi.mahlangu@joburg.msf.org , phone/WhatsApp: +27 82 924 8454

About Access Campaign

The Access Campaign is part of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation.

Our work is rooted in MSF’s medical operations and supports people in our projects and beyond. 

We bring down barriers that keep people from getting the treatment they need to stay alive and healthy. We advocate for effective drugs, tests and vaccines that are:

About Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is a global network of principled medical and other professionals who specialise in medical humanitarian work, driven by our common humanity and guided by medical ethics. We strive to bring emergency medical care to people caught in conflicts, crises, and disasters in more than 70 countries worldwide.

In South Africa, the organisation is recognised as one of the pioneers of providing Antiretroviral Treatment (ART) in the public sector and started the first HIV programmes in South Africa in 1999. Until today, the focus of MSF’s interventions in the country has primarily been on developing new testing and treatment strategies for HIV/AIDS and TB in Eshowe (Kwa-Zulu Natal) and Khayelitsha (Western Cape).

In Tshwane, we run a migration project, and we offer medical and psychosocial care to migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, who struggle to access public health services under South Africa’s increasingly restrictive.

Previously we offered free, high-quality, confidential medical care to survivors of SGBV in Rustenburg.

To learn more about our work in South Africa, please visit this page on our website (www.msf.org.za). To support MSF’s work: