AMSA-IUA Fourth International Health
Conference
African Medical Students
Association
at the International University
of Africa (AMSA-IUA)
Fourth International Health
Conference,
8th -9th
January 2016
Under the Theme:
NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASES IN AFRICA,
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Africa
is not a healthy continent per se. It carries 25% of the world’s disease burden
and only 1.3% of the world’s health workforce.
Africa
is the second largest and second most populous continent, accounts for about
15% of human population and covers about 30.2 million km2. Africa is
now faced with double burden of diseases; communicable and non-communicable
diseases.
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are now the
leading cause of death in the most regions of the world. Africa is expected to
have the largest increase in NCDs over the next decade, this will cause huge
burden to the continent .Non-communicable diseases has been identified into
four main categories according to WHO; 1-Cardiovasicular diseases such as Heart
attacks and strokes.2-Chronic respiratory diseases like chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease and Asthma 3-Cancers such as cervical cancer which is the
second most common cancer for female, oral cancer, breast cancer, prostate and lung cancer. 4-Diabete divides into type
1 and type 2. These diseases share four risk factors- tobacco use, harmful use
of alcohol, physical inactivity and unhealthy diet- More than 36million people
die each year from NCDs, and nearly 80% of these are from low to middle –income
countries, conclusively socioeconomics have played a vital role in NCDs
therefore preventing
