The Ministry of Health, through Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC) has announced plans to significantly reduce deaths attributed to Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), by among others cutting the burden of cardiovascular decease in the country.

According to 2016 estimates from World Health Organisation, NCDs accounted for 44 per cent of total annual deaths in Rwanda, and according to an official from Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), the plan is to reduce this to 25 per cent by 2025.

This was revealed on Tuesday, July 26, as government and stakeholders launched a mass campaign aimed at providing education and awareness of hypertension and decreasing the burden of cardiovascular disease.

The campaign dubbed Healthy Heart Africa, which was launched at Nyarugenge District Hospital, will be supported by RBC in partnership with AstraZaneca and will be implemented by Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH).

Rwanda is the eighth country where the campaign has been launched and the activity included hundreds of Rwandans getting free screening for hypertension and diabetes.

According to RBC estimates, there is a significant gap between the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension, where out of over one million people with hypertension, only 80,000 are enrolled at clinics.

During the official launch of the programme, Dr François Uwinkindi, Division Manager of the Non-Communicable Diseases Division at RBC, said that there is a lack of education, awareness, and services of the disease in Rwanda.

"The awareness level is still low and also our services are not efficient enough, in Rwanda research shows that 16.2 per cent of people in the range of 18-65 years have high blood pressure which also goes up to 29 per cent of people over 35 years, and 46 per cent of people lives with hypertension unknowingly,” he said.

The HHA programme partnership will help in implementing the five-year plan by providing awareness to the public, giving capacity building to healthcare professionals, and also equipping healthcare systems with the resources needed to diagnose and manage hypertension.

Ashling Mulvaney, the vice president at AstraZeneca in charge of global sustainability and access to healthcare, said the programme will build on "the remarkable effort that the Ministry of Health and RBC have invested to address the growing challenge of non-communicable diseases.”

"We are taking the programme across Africa step by step and we also feel having a strong partnership with the Ministry of Health and PATH a great opportunity, our primary goal is to reach people where they live and work and link them to quality care for hypertension as part of our mission to reduce health inequalities”.

Dr Amos Mugisha, PATH Country Director, Tanzania, said that they chose to focus more on hypertension as it is one of the diseases that has been forgotten.

"Hypertension is a silent killer disease that has been forgotten, we have big programs concerning HIV, cancer, and others but hypertension seems to be ignored, so we thought that it is a problem that needs attention and so we decided to tackle it as it has no implementing partner,” he said.

He explained that to implement the programme, they are working with community health workers to ensure that enough screenings are done and to achieve the programme’s goals which will be taken up by the Rwandan government.

Over 500,000 people are expected to be screened during this programme.

According to WHO estimates from 2016, NCDs accounted for 44 per cent of total annual deaths in Rwanda. The Rwanda nationwide non-communicable diseases STEP-wise survey revealed that 15.9 per cent of participants had elevated blood pressure.

Over 500,000 people are expected to be screened during this programme. Photo by Craish Bahizi

Rwanda is the eighth country where the campaign has been launched and the activity included hundreds of Rwandans getting free screening for hypertension and diabetes. Photo by Craish Bahizi

The campaign dubbed Health Heart Africa was launched at Nyarugenge District Hospital, will be supported by RBC in partnership with AsatraZaneca. Photo by Craish Bahizi