Diseases In Africa

Africa is home to many tropical diseases like malaria, Buruli ulcer, schistosomiasis, leprosy, filariasis, African trypanosomiasis, Ebola hemorrhagic fever, giardiasis and African sleeping just to name a few.

It is not surprising that the World Health Organization has so many programs in Africa that focus on prevention and control of tropical diseases. The programs focus on different diseases and may even have different goals but the goals are the same, to end the suffering of the people of Africa.

The following information was gathered from www.afro.who.int/

mission of advocacy for social mobilization is to strengthen programs in Africa to plan and implement effective advocacy, social mobilization and communication strategies to support immunization.

The World Health Organization (WHO) plans to develop the control and supervision regarding Buruli ulcer in Africa, to support control activities and management of cases of antibiotics, surgery and to help preventing future disability occurring disease through education, research and understanding of socio economic implications faced by African people.

The Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response (CSR) is an organization of monitoring and intervention to make regional, national and global awareness of the situation in Africa. The organization plans, monitors and evaluates program activities.

The emerging, re-emerging and other communicable diseases (SDC) is a program that provides technical support to African countries, including training of health personnel on support and management epidmiology epidemic, the necessary support for African countries on emergency stocks of medicines, vaccines and other supplies to prepare for the needs of epidemics.

The Regional Programme for the Elimination of Leprosy provides technical, administrative and financial support to African countries where leprosy remains a major threat.

A program to help concerned African control of African trypanosomiasis is as follows: Programme against African Trypanosomiasis (PAAT). The program's objective is to "solve the problem of trypanosomiasis in the broader context of food security, human health, rural development and sustainable agriculture"

All these programs if they are educational or medical have one thing in common and that is to help eradicate tropical diseases from Africa n countries. Programs to better inform citizens about the tropical diseases that plague them, they embark on programs that help fight against disease, or develop ways to prevent the spread of the disease. Some programs are even set up to help financially or to provide the necessary medication or medical supplies. The World Health Organization (WHO) is an instrumental force behind much of Africa programs. There are also academic institutions, pharmaceutical companies and private companies that provide some assistance to Africa are linked with the WHO and some act on their own.

WHO is a coordinating authority for health within the UN system. It provides leadership in regard to global health issues, and sets standards, provides technical support to countries and monitors health trends.