Africa’s ‘Disease Detectives’ turn to frontline surveillance as NCD burden grows
Health professionals from nine African countries are participating in a regional training program to integrate non-communicable disease (NCD) surveillance into existing infectious disease monitoring systems. This initiative aims to better manage the rising burden of conditions like diabetes and hypertension alongside traditional health threats.
Why it matters
Adapting frontline health surveillance to include chronic diseases is essential for strengthening healthcare systems in developing nations facing multiple health crises.
Dar es Salaam. For years, frontline health workers across Africa have been trained to spot disease outbreaks and respond to infectious threats. Now, they are being equipped with another task, identifying the warning signs of chronic diseases before they become harder and more expensive to manage.
That shift is at the centre of a regional training programme that has brought together 37 health professionals from nine African countries in Dar es Salaam to strengthen the capacity of mentors supporting frontline epidemiologists.
The participants have completed the second phase of a regional Training of Trainers (ToT) programme under the World Bank-funded Health Emergency Preparedness, Response and Resilience Programme (HEPRR-MPA) which covers 11 countries across Eastern and Southern Africa under the World Bank's Multiphase Programmatic Approach (MPA): Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Zambia.
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