Ugandans tipped on preventing non-communicable diseases

Denis Musoga Katanku, a nutritionist from the Uganda Heart Institute, urged the residents to embrace a diet of vegetables and fruits and avoid fatty foods, which he said are responsible for many heart diseases and diabetes.

At the same event, Moses Echodu, a childhood cancer survivor, shared how fought off the disease and also urged the community to avoid stigmatising those with the diseases.

“It is important that our communities learn that the mere fact that these people have been diagnosed with the diseases, it doesn’t change who they are as people given that these are not contagious diseases,” he said.

“The community has a massive role it can play to ensure that these people receive all the kind of support that they need but also feel that they are part of the whole community without receiving judgement,” he added.

Echodu is a beneficiary of an 18-month training for persons living with non-communicable diseases funded by NCDI Poverty Network.

After the training, a beneficiary was supposed to carry out their own individual projects and Echodu focused his project on addressing the issue of stigma in Kyengera. This was aimed at raising awareness about the diseases, which include diabetes, cancer, sickle cell, and mental health, among others.  

Echodu stated: “Today our focus here was to sensitize the community about the Non-Communicable Diseases but importantly the stigma that comes with one being diagnosed with the disease/diseases.”

Ecodu wraps up his training this year and he believes that this, he will be able to speak more about non-communicable diseases, advocate for equitable access to care for all persons who are living with the diseases.

He is not shy to mention that the biggest challenge to access to care for persons living with NCDs has been funding but he hopes that this will be something that will change in the near future.

“As a country, we have some of the best policies on non-communicable diseases, especially when you compare to our counterparts in Africa but our shortcoming has always been the funding. Hopefully, this is something that will change in the near future” he stated.  

Ecodu states that the training was interesting as he heard experiences of other people like him that are going through the challenge of living with Non-Communicable diseases.

“I had the chance to interact with fellows from Kenya, Nepal, and Rwanda and literally the challenges are similar in the making but then our strength is almost the same as well. It has been great sharing with each other online for the past 18 months and getting to become better with each day that passes,” he said.

At the event, more than 100 people received screening for the various non-communicable diseases.
Josephine Nakakande, the health officer in charge of the facility stated that “This is a very timely activity because we need our community to be the biggest support system for the people who are identified with these diseases and Ecodu choosing to work with our facility is good because he identifies that these are services that are easily found in the major hospitals especially Mulago.” she said.

This activity was funded by NCDI Poverty Network, Voices of NCDI Poverty and the Uganda Initiative for Integrated Management of Non-Communicable Diseases (UINCD), an organization that has been coordinating and mentoring Ecodu for the last 18 months on advocacy locally.

The other players that were part of the activity included Uganda Heart Institute, Uganda Cancer Institute, Uganda Non-Communicable Disease Alliance, Sickle Cell Community.

Echodu’s 18-month training, which took place online, aimed at empowering people who are living with these diseases to become better advocates and powerful contributors to development of policies for Non-communicable diseases in the Low and middle income countries. 

“This is an opening for the PEN-Plus project that will be starting soon in Uganda led by UINCD together with Partners in Health, NCDI poverty Network aimed at training lower health workers to identify diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, sickle cell in the poorest communities. This will be important in helping identify more people early enough.” he added.

According to WHO, non-communicable diseases account for 41 million deaths per year. Each year, we lose up to 17 million people to NCDs before the age of 70. That is 86% of premature deaths and these highly occur in the low and middle income countries like Uganda, Nepal, Kenya, Malawi, among others.