African Health Ministers adopt Brazzaville Declaration on Noncommunicable Diseases

The first Africa Regional Ministerial Consultation on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) ended in the Congolese capital recently with the adoption of the Brazzaville Declaration on NCDs.

The conference which had in attendance health ministers from various countries in the African continent, called for urgent action by various stakeholders to address major NCDs and priority conditions which represent “a significant challenge” to people in the African region: cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases, diseases of blood disorder (in particular sickle cell disease), mental health, violence and injuries.

Highlights of the Declaration include commitment by the Ministers to strengthen and standardize national health systems to generate disaggregated data on NCDs, their risk factors and determinants and monitor their magnitude, trends, and impact ; use all appropriate means including information and communication technologies to promote, intensify and increase health awareness and empowerment of individuals and communities;  as well as develop and implement NCD prevention and control strategies, guidelines, policies, legislations and regulatory frameworks including the WHO FCTC to protect individuals, families and communities from unhealthy diets, harmful use of alcohol, tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke and unsafe food; and from violence and injuries, advertising of unhealthy products.

Speaking with BusinessDay, Akin Osibogun, Chief Medical Director, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-araba said that declaration at the conference which ended recently will no doubt re orient national health systems towards the promotion and support of healthy lifestyles by individuals, families and communities within the primary health care context in order to effectively respond to complex social, cultural and behavioral aspects associated with NCDs.

The CMD noted that there is the need to identify and harness existing health initiatives, including global initiatives, to accelerate the prevention and control of NCDs and address integrated care in the context of primary health care and health systems strengthening.

In his words “There is the need to allocate from the national budgets, financial resources that are commensurate to the burden of NCDs to support NCD primary prevention and case management using primary health care approach and establish sustainable innovative and new financing mechanisms at national and international levels. This is because the cases of NCDs are on the rise due to changing lifestyles among Nigerians, feeding habits, etc.”

For his part, Innocent Ujah, Director-General, National Institute of Medical Research, NIMR, stated that the burden of cancer in Africa especially Nigeria, which is a non communicable disease, is largely unknown due to lack of adequate statistics and under-reporting from patients.

Ujah noted that most reported cases were hospital- based, which represented a minute proportion as majority of the country’s population were living in rural areas, which were usually too far from health facilities.

“Most people will say cancer is not their portion even when it is glaring that they have it. They come to the hospital when it is obviously late for effective intervention from experts. This is frustrating cancer prevention efforts and various screening methods used to enhance early detection which seems to have had little or no impact on the nation,” Ujah stated.

Efforts at cancer control and research is poor in Africa. No doubt, adequate and improved research activities as well as increased human and infrastructural facilities could help in discovering epidemiological risk factors for cancer in the environment to save lives.

Other decisions taken at the summit were to further strengthen health systems with appropriate attention to, among other things, health financing, training and retaining the health workforce, procurement and distribution of medicines, vaccines, medical supplies and equipment; improving infrastructure; and, evidence-based and cost-effective service delivery for NCDs.

In the meantime, stakeholders at the summit urged the United Nations to include NCD prevention and control in all future global development goals, and called on WHO, partners and civil society organisations to provide technical support to Member States for implementing, and monitoring.

The Ministers also requested the UN Secretary General to establish a mechanism to monitor progress of the commitments taken at the UN High-level Summit ion NCDs, and called on the WHO Regional Director for Africa to include the regional NCD strategic plan in the agenda of the 62nd session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa and report progress made in the implementation of the Declaration to Regional Committee in 2014.