That is the dire news from the Harvard School of Public Health.
"Aid to Africa has focused largely on infectious diseases such as malaria, TB, and HIV," the school's Africa/Harvard School of Public Health PaCT (Partnership for Cohort Research & Training) has reported. "But such efforts will soon be overshadowed by a burden of chronic diseases similar to that seen in high-income countries. A menacing epidemic of heart disease, cancer, mental illness, diabetes, and obesity is growing in Africa. WHO projections for Africa show chronic diseases outstripping infectious diseases in the coming years and causing 46 percent of deaths by the year 2030 if nothing is done."1
The Foundation for Healthy Africa has been established to do something about this developing crisis. The Foundation helps fund the Africa Center for Lifestyle Excellence, a new research and educational center to be established at Africa University.
"Western" diseases such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension, heart disease, and stroke were rare in Africa until recent decades. They are beginning to strike hard in many countries in Africa, where officials are ill-prepared to cope because their resources are still focused on the communicable diseases that remain major threats to health and well-being.
Recognizing this problem, the Faculty of Health Sciences at Africa University is establishing a Center for Lifestyle Excellence to: • Conduct research to determine what lifestyle characteristics are prevalent today, and what approaches to strengthen healthy lifestyles will work best in Africa now and in the future. • Teach students the principles of lifestyle excellence so they in turn can become teachers and models of healthy lifestyles in their own communities. • Teach the principles of healthy living in African schools, churches, and other community organizations.
'The next health frontier'
"Over 10 years, the United States will spend $67 billion on its widely praised President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which changed the face of AIDS in Africa.
Michelle Holmes, MD
"But such efforts, focusing on one disease, have drawn attention away from emerging chronic diseases similar to those that are the top killers in the United States."
— "The next health frontier: Chronic diseases in Africa," by Michelle Holmes and Shona Dalal The Boston Globe August 17, 2009
African Health Ministers adopt Brazzaville Declaration on Noncommunicable Diseases Brazzaville, 7 April 2011 -- The first Africa Regional Ministerial Consultation on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) ended in the Congolese capital on Wednesday (6 April) with the adoption of the Brazzaville Declaration on NCDs.
The Declaration urged urgent action by various stakeholders to address major NCDs and priority conditions which represent “a significant challenge” to people in the African region: cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases, diseases of blood disorder (in particular sickle cell disease), mental health, violence and injuries.
Major health organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the USA strongly advise teaching healthy lifestyles as the best answer to combating NCDs. Both WHO and the CDC state that 75 to 80 percent of many NCDs are preventable, and that healthy lifestyles are the way to do this. That's why Foundation for Healthy Living was established. It's underlying goal is to promote healthy living all across Africa.
Vision Statement: We envision Centers of Lifestyle Excellence thriving across Africa, empowering people to live abundantly vibrant and joyous health!
Mission Statements: Short-term (five years): To help Africa University establish the Africa Center for Lifestyle Excellence, enabling it to carry out research, education, and community outreach in promoting lifestyle excellence.
Long-term (five to fifty years): To establish Centers of Lifestyle Excellence across Africa to help people learn to apply the principles of lifestyle excellence in their own communities.
We invite you to join us in this worthiest of causes. Please donate now.
Todd Schaffer of Inside African Art with Njuguna, Java House, Sarit Center, Westlands, Nairobi
Acknowledgement Bernard Ndichu Njuguna of Kenya created the original art that appears in the header of this website. Learn more about him at Inside African Art.
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