By: Ben Deighton
Send to a friend
The details you provide on this page will not be used to send unsolicited email, and will not be sold to a 3rd party. See privacy policy.
Africa needs to swap disease-based health systems for wellness-seeking systems in order to meet the coming epidemic of lifestyle-based diseases, according to Francis Omaswa, chancellor of Uganda’s Busitema University and founder of the UN Global Health Workforce Alliance.
Low- and middle-income countries account for 90 per cent of the 14 million people who die prematurely every year from non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease, according to the WHO.
Speaking on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET) in London on 24 October, Omaswa said researchers needed to document the rising epidemic of non-communicable diseases in Africa in order to be able to convince policymakers of the need to act.
How big is the problem of non-communicable diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa?
You really need to start now thinking about non-communicable diseases particularly about prevention, prevention, prevention. We have a rapidly growing urban population who are more sedentary, they are on a diet which is just like the Western diet and we really can do something about this now ‒ provided that there is understanding by our leaders that this epidemic is one which something can be done about.
What science do we need?
Also we need studies on behaviour and how to get people to accept and recognise that some of the things they do, the choices that they make, should be pro-health rather than anti-health as it is now. Then we need to do a lot of work in schools to get the children as they grow up to understand how they can promote their own health and how to avoid getting into the trap of non-communicable diseases.
What will happen if we ignore this epidemic?
Apart from advising politicians, what other capacity do countries such as Uganda need in order to tackle this epidemic?
The health system which is wellness-seeking is the health system of the future and it is the one we should be advocating for African governments to adopt.