On July 3rd at the Singapore WCD, we discussed “Global Aspects of AD” with an international expert panel and an audience representative of the diversity of our field.
A derived JEADV position paper “AD: A Global Health Perspective” is now published.
The Singapore roundtable was an opportunity to compare experiences in World Bank category 1 (Madagascar and Mali), 3 (Brazil, China), and 4 (Australia, Germany, Qatar, USA, Singapore, Japan) countries.
The expert panel concluded that current AD guidelines are not adapted for low resource settings and that a more pragmatic approach, as developed by WHO for skin neglected diseases (NTDs), would be advisable for minimal access to moisturizers and topical corticosteroids.
The panel also recommended prioritizing prevention studies, regardless of the level of existing resources.
For disease long-term control in World Bank category 3 and most category 4 countries, the main identified problem was not access to drugs for most mild-to-moderate cases, but rather poor compliance due to insufficient time at visits.