Week in health

Last week, the University of Rwanda’s College of Medicine and Health Sciences, in collaboration with the Eastern Health professions Educators Association (EAHPEA), conducted a three-day conference with an aim of ensuring that the education sector plays its rightful role in boosting the healthcare sector. Organised under the theme, “Innovations in Health Professional Education,” the workshop drew more than 100 participants from eastern Africa and other regional countries to collectively address difficulties faced in the health sector as a result of curriculum deficiencies. Dr Solange Hakiba, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Health, acknowledged how implementation of several health programmes in sub-Saharan Africa still faces a pile of hurdles which can only be addressed within medical schools before students pass out. Hakiba explained that, since majority of skills of health professionals are acquired within school, relevant lessons can iron out most of the challenges in the sector as well as guarantee suitable employment to all health workers She also cited brain drain and health workers switching professionals as the biggest limitations to health access. Prof. Sarah Kiguli, the chairperson of East African Health Professionals Educators Association, attributed the shortage of medical professionals in the region to poor funding. Kiguli emphasized that lack of enough numbers limits access to health services but poor funding has promoted the habit of good health workers practicing in towns while abandoning rural settings. She added that if good incentives are given, more health professionals can be lured into practicing within areas outside town. Mean while the continuing Ebola epidemic in Guinea has set back the country’s fight against malaria, according to experts who estimate that 74,000 cases of malaria went untreated in 2014 because clinics were either closed or patients were too scared to seek help. A report in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal warns that malaria deaths since the Ebola outbreak began will far exceed the number of Ebola deaths in the country - which now stand at 2,444. Both Ebola and malaria cause fever hence the authors of the Lancet report say fear surrounding the Ebola virus may have stopped patients in Guinea going to see a doctor to get this symptom checked. Elsewhere in the region the South Sudan’s government has declared cholera outbreak in the capital city, where at least 18 people died and 171 cases were confirmed. Although the first suspected case was received on June 1 originating from inside the UN ‘displaced persons’ camp on the outskirts of Juba, cases have since spread outside the camp to some of the city’s most congested neighbourhoods. Now the ministry of confirms 171 confirmed cases of cholera and 18 deaths from the disease on categories of disabilities.