Archief Roodbont

Chronic disease ‘epidemic’
affects Africa too
Infectious diseases remain a leading
cause of death in sub-Saharan African
countries, but some African countries
including Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa
are facing a high prevalence of chronic
and noncommunicable diseases.
“Coronary heart disease is a
huge problem in Africa and is reaching
epidemic proportions. This is related to
urbanization with people eating more
fast food, smoking more and exercising
less,” said Shan Biesman-Simons, Director
of Nutrition and Education for the Heart
Foundation in South Africa.
Nigeria is also taking the problem
of chronic disease seriously. President
Olusegun Obasanjo said his country
would be facing a time bomb if it did
not act now to address the problem of
chronic disease.
“We cannot afford to say ‘we must
tackle other diseases first — HIV/AIDS,
malaria, tuberculosis — then we will deal
with chronic diseases.’ If we wait even
10 years, we will find that the problem
is even larger and more expensive to
address,” Obasanjo wrote in the WHO
report, Preventing chronic diseases: a
vital investment.
Access to doctors and appropriate
treatment is a major problem in many
developing countries. “In the public sector
in South Africa it can be very difficult for
people to get access to medicines,”
Biesman-Simons told the Bulletin.
“They may have to travel long
distances to get to a clinic, then they
may have to wait in a queue all day, and
they still may be sent home without the
correct treatment,” she said.
Poor education is another problem
area, both for the medical profession and
the general public. Biesman-Simons gave
the example of rheumatic heart disease,
often called the disease of poverty,
although it is entirely preventable. A
“strep” throat can be treated extremely
cheaply with penicillin, but if left untreated
it can develop into rheumatic fever, which
can then lead to heart damage.
“Thousands of young people in
South Africa are waiting for expensive
heart valve replacement operations and
have a poor quality of life and this could
have been avoided if they had been
diagnosed and treated appropriately at
the start,” Biesman-Simons said.
Jacqui Wise, Cape Town