Accra, Dec. 01, GNA – AstraZeneca, a global, science-led biopharmaceutical company, says it will expand its Healthy Heart Africa (HHA) Programme to 10 new countries from 2023.
The HHA is AstraZeneca’s innovative programme committed to tackling hypertension (high blood pressure) and the increasing burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Africa.
The programme is currently operational in nine countries.
A news brief released by the company said the Programme would be expanded to Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, The Gambia, Madagascar, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
It said the expansion would contribute to HHA’s ambition to reach 10 million people with elevated blood pressure across Africa by 2025.
“This is in partnership with the Africa Christian Health Associations Platform (ACHAP) and PATH, who will implement and manage the programme expansion to five countries each over the next two years,” it said. “Existing HHA programmes will continue in Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania (including Zanzibar), Uganda, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Rwanda, and Nigeria, with a range of implementing partners, including ACHAP and Path.”
The company said the HHA contributed to strengthening health systems by working in partnership with local stakeholders to provide services, such as free blood pressure screening, creating education and awareness about cardiovascular diseases and their risk factors, and providing blood pressure screening equipment and training healthcare workers on guidelines to improve the quality of care.
It said since 2014, the Programme had conducted more than 30.5 million blood pressure screenings and trained more than 9,900 healthcare workers.
Commenting on the planned expansion, Mr Ashling Mulvaney, Vice President, Global Sustainability, Access to Healthcare, AstraZeneca said the HHA had made significant impact in supporting cardiovascular healthcare on the continent.
“We believe in leveraging the power of partnerships to provide equitable and affordable access to life-changing treatments for people, especially in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). This expansion will increase our contribution to halting and reversing the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases in Africa,” he said.
Nkatha Njeru, Coordinator and Chief Executive Officer, ACHAP said: “The approach of HHA to leverage investments in other areas of health to reach people living with co – and multi-morbidities is a practical example of what is needed going forward in global health.”
The World Heart Federation states that in 2019, Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for one million deaths from cardiovascular disease or 5.4 per cent of all CVD-related deaths worldwide and 13 per cent of all deaths in Africa.
Hypertension, commonly known as high blood pressure, is the most important modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular diseases.
Risk factors are conditions that increase your risk of developing a disease. Risk factors are either modifiable, meaning you can take measures to change them, or non-modifiable, which means they cannot be changed.
The World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that the African region has the highest prevalence of hypertension at 27 per cent, demonstrating the need for prevention and management interventions.
GNA