Action on Non-communicable Diseases in sub-Sahara Africa (ANSA)

Saturday 27 December 2008, by Webmaster

This is an ongoing project in which we are using the same sites like those of CENHIP. The two goals of ANSA are: to develop, evaluate, disseminate and build capacity for the implementation of sustainable models for improving primary health care for the detection and management of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in 2 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries; Through the dissemination of the results from the 2 SSA countries to provide models that can be used to build capacity for the detection and management of common NCDs in other SSA countries. To build the capacity a Rapid Assessment Procedure (RAP) was conducted with the following objectives:

-* To document the overall structure and functioning of the health care system (both privately and publicly funded) within two districts in Cameroon and to show how the detection and management of patients with hypertension, diabetes, asthma and epilepsy operates within the health systems. -*To develop pragmatic protocols for undertaking a situation analysis of the quality and level of current primary health services for the detection and management of patients with hypertension, diabetes, asthma and epilepsy.

The aims of the RAP were:

i. To document the overall structure and functioning of the health care system in Cameroon.

ii. To describe current policy (implicit and explicit) and practice for the detection and management of hypertension, diabetes, asthma and epilepsy within the health care system, and where similar information has been collected for other conditions to make comparisons with these.

iii. Within each of the project health districts to describe/estimate the quality (processes) and costs of care for the detection and management of patients with hypertension, diabetes, asthma and epilepsy.

iv. Within each of the project health districts to undertake a comparison of the costs and quality of care within the ENHIP clinics and "normal care" for asthma, epilepsy, diabetes and hypertension.5. v. To identify beliefs and perceptions of health services and other factors that may foster or inhibit the use of the formal health care sector by people with NCDs.

v. To use the data collected to develop, implement and evaluate intervention packages to improve NCD care in the project districts in collaboration with local health care managers, providers and patients.

vi. To disseminate the results within Cameroon and to other sSA countries.

The RAP has provided us with data on the functioning of the entire health system, health facilities, NCD policy status in Cameroon. It has also evaluated the quality of care provided to patients as well as the health beliefs of the patients, health staff and the community relating to these conditions. We have shown through the RAP that there is no national NCD policy or programmes, nor treatment guidelines for NCDs. The quality of health care is mediocre; staff and patient knowledge about these conditions is low. Health beliefs are deterrents to seeking health in modern health facilities. Based on these results and those from CENHIP, we have developed NCD intervention packages (diagnosis and treatment protocols, staff and patient education material, health promotion packages) for introduction in the primary health care. We are currently holding workshops with the health district committees to disseminate the results of the RAP study and to involve them in the implementation of the packages so as to ensure the sustainability of the project. Once we have shown that these packages work, we will hold a national workshop with the national health policy markers and WHO Cameroon to integrate the packages into the National NCD programme. It is worthwhile mentioning again here that we are working with the Ministry of Health to Develop the National NCD programme.

In the course of the various workshops that we have organized in favour of the national health policy makers, we observed that most of them thought that NCDs were diseases of the rich. In this vain, they do not see why the government should invest in this sector. The next project was developed in collaboration with the WHO in order to disprove this misunderstanding.

• Ethnopharmacology and Molecular Biology of Diabetes Mellitus
  The identification, evaluation and recognition of the value of traditional therapy for non-communicable diseases in Cameroon is being (...)
• Non-communicable diseases and poverty project (2000-2001)
  The burden of many non-communicable diseases (NCD), particularly cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and lung cancer, tends to increase with (...)
• Action on Non-communicable Diseases in sub-Sahara Africa (ANSA)
  This is an ongoing project in which we are using the same sites like those of CENHIP. The two goals of ANSA are: to develop, evaluate, (...)
• Cameroon Essential Non-communicable Diseases Health Intervention Project (CENHIP)
  This project was concerned with the improvement of health care, in particular the development of practical treatment guidelines, and the (...)
• The European Union Nutritional Project
  The study on nutritional influences on the emergence of hypertension and diabetes in Afro-populations of Cameroon, Jamaica, Paris, France and (...)