Friday, February 23, 2024, 10:00 a.m
Around four million people in Germany suffer from one of the over 7,000 known rare diseases. Most of these diseases are poorly researched and over 90 percent have no approved treatment. Those affected wait an average of 4.8 years for the correct diagnosis and often have countless visits to the doctor, unsuccessful or incorrect therapeutic approaches and long journeys before they receive the correct diagnosis. The old medical maxim still applies: “When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras.” This zebra aphorism is intended to make it clear that common diseases are more likely than rare ones, even if the symptoms match both. That’s why the zebra today symbolizes rare diseases.
Zebras are also the focus of the colorUp4RARE awareness campaign: Around the International Day of Rare Diseases (RDD), which was founded in 2008 by the global organization EURORDIS and always falls on the last day of February, people with rare diseases and the The challenges they live with are brought into focus and the work of patient organizations for people with such diseases, in Germany the Alliance for Rare Chronic Diseases ACHSE, is supported.
Find out more here.
colourUp4RARE was initially launched in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in 2023. This year it will also be implemented in other European countries and in Canada. More about the international colourUp4RARE campaign at www.colourUp4RARE.com