By: Modou Touray & Aja Horeja Njie
Mr Mrs Betty Kabarega Ingabire, the Non- Non-Communicable Diseases Technical Officer, at Africa Centre for Diseases Control expressed concern that the Health Care System in the African Continent is fragile and tackling challenges.
She was speaking on behalf of his director general this morning at Tamala Hotel at the opening of a five-day regional workshop on Non-Communication Disease injuries and Mental Health on the Continental strategy implementation.
” Colleagues, like we all know and like anywhere else in the World, Non-Communication Diseases including injuries and Mental health conditions have become the leading cause of premature deaths and mortality and an important barrier to increasing life expectancy in every country of Africa. Despite the rapidly growing burden of these conditions in Africa, our health systems capacities and infrastructure are still fragile with challenges including policy and programmatic gaps among others.”
She emphasized that in addressing these challenges, in April 2022, Africa CDC developed continental strategic priorities focusing on addressing NCDs, injuries, and Mental health.
” Through his strategy, Africa CDC is dedicated to collaboratively supporting Member States to enhance their capacity to develop, integrate, and implement policies to prevent, protect, and manage NCDs with a priority intervention to achieve this objective including fostering peer learning across Member States.”
She added that through the implementation of this strategy, they are here today to support the efforts of the region through the provision of a platform for peer-to-peer exchange, learning, and support.
” We do not doubt that this review benefits your respective countries by supporting your efforts to assess existing national action on NCDI/MH and identify strategies to address priority needs for improvement. It will also provide a platform for networking and mutual learning”
She said the findings from this assessment, will shed light on the existing best practices in Member States, challenges about implementing NCD/MH strategies and programs at a country level and key agreed actions to addressing these challenges.
