Research is crucial in fighting NCDS

Currently, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) mainly cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes are the world’s biggest killers.

More than 41 million people die annually from NCDs (71 per cent of global deaths), including more than 15 million people who die young between the ages of 30 and 69. Developing countries already bear 86 per cent of the burden of these premature deaths, resulting in cumulative economic losses of $7 trillion over the next 15 years yet millions of people are still trapped in poverty.

It is only over the last 20 years that the growing threat of non-communicable diseases have been taken serious in developing countries. In Africa, WHO has responded with a number of policies, including WHO Strategy on Non-Communicable Diseases and the Brazzaville Declaration. In Uganda, the Ministry of Health instituted a Programme for Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases in 2006.

In 2019, the ministry launched the Non-Communicable Diseases and Injuries Commission and efforts on prevention through creating awareness of risk factors and asking people to adjust their lifestyles and diets. But these policies and other initiatives have not effectively addressed the increase in non-communicable diseases.

Studies show that NCDs are becoming one of the top causes of deaths in Uganda. According to WHO, the four major NCDs reportedly kill about 100,000 people annually, which is 35 per cent of the total annual deaths in Uganda. Also, the probability of dying between the age of 30 and 70 due to the major NCDs, is 22 per cent in Uganda (the highest in the East African region).

If the current situation continues, then Uganda won’t attain the Sustainable Development Goals of reducing NCD death by 30 per cent by 2030. Whereas Uganda has good integrated diseases surveillance, health information and management system, lack of research that deals specifically with local conditions of NCDs, is one of the biggest gaps that needs to be closed in the fight against NCDs.

It is important to note that although global initiatives, policies, actions on NCDs based on UN summits in 2011, 2014 and 2018 have led to a reduction of NCD cases in developed countries, the situation isn’t the same in sub-Saharan Africa. One of the arguments for this is lack of relevant local research that would provide knowledge on how to contextualise prevention and control measures developed in other parts of the world and make them effective and efficient for Uganda’s setting and Africa in general.

Moreover, majority of the interventions to prevent and control NCDs have been developed in the West hence they require some adaptations to work in other settings.

For example, coronary heart diseases are predominant in the West while cerebrovascular diseases are predominant in Africa. So what needs to be done is establishing a dedicated research unit that specifically looks at prevention, detection and control of the four major NCDs in Uganda.

Daniel Achol,
[email protected]