Non Communicable Disease in Africa
In sub-Saharan Africa, noncommunicable diseases like cancer, cardiovascular issues, and diabetes are increasingly becoming the leading cause of death. These diseases accounted for 37% of deaths in 2019, up from 24% in 2000, primarily due to shortcomings in implementing crucial control measures, including prevention, diagnosis, and care.
The impact of non-communicable diseases, injuries, and mental health conditions in Africa is substantial, causing over 2.1 million premature deaths and 204 million Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) in 2019. This surpasses the impact of communicable, maternal, and nutritional diseases.
Limited resources, low GDP, and meager health expenditure contribute to the rise of noncommunicable diseases, overshadowed by efforts to control diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Urgent action is needed to combat these preventable diseases and alleviate the strain on already stretched resources.
Disease trajectory models predict a further increase in the impact of non-communicable diseases, injuries, and mental health conditions in African countries. The World Health Organization estimates a rise in yearly premature deaths to 3.8 million by 2030, comprising 51% of premature mortality in sub-Saharan Africa alone. For the entire African Union region, the total number of deaths from these conditions is projected to triple by 2063, reaching 16.6 million per year, constituting 89% of all deaths.
To address the rising burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), African nations have been implementing standardized programs aimed at tackling chronic and severe conditions. These initiatives focus on ensuring that district hospitals have access to essential medicines, technologies, and diagnostics. Governments in Africa are also working to make services for severe NCDs available to individuals seeking healthcare in both private and public hospitals. Additionally, efforts have been made to strengthen protocols for the prevention, care, and treatment of chronic NCDs by enhancing the skills and knowledge of healthcare workers.
However, these efforts are falling short. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) data from 2019, only 36% of African countries reported having essential medicines for noncommunicable diseases available in public hospitals. This highlights a significant gap in the resources needed to effectively address the challenges posed by NCDs in the region.
WHO Regional Office for Africa has initiated a Transformative Agenda. This agenda aims to improve accountability, cost-effectiveness, and monitoring of health interventions. The region’s priorities include advancing universal health coverage, strengthening health systems, and reducing the disease burden through better communication and collaboration across clusters.
The Universal Health Coverage/Communicable and Non-communicable Diseases Cluster (UCN), established in 2019, integrates disease prevention and control programs within a health system strengthening framework. As part of this agenda, the UCN cluster adopted Precision Public Health (PPH) in 2021 to enhance disease control. This transformation responds to the slow progress toward the region’s 2030 disease reduction targets and aligns with the SDG goal of leaving no one behind. The region faced challenges in achieving UN SDG targets, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on health systems and service delivery. The pandemic has also affected the economic outlook and health investments, hampering progress on disease morbidity and mortality.
Rojina Shrestha, BPH