Blog
Tag: Public Health
COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Makes Another Case for Digital CKD Registries in Africa
Triage. It’s been one year since the COVID-19 pandemic began to rampage and change our lives forever, while adding a plethora of new terms into our collective lexicon. One such term we can expect to hear more frequently, as the COVID-19 vaccine distribution picks up pace globally, is “triage”. Triage, in pre-pandemic terms, was most…
“A Stitch in Time Saves Nine” — Why Africa’s “next M-Pesa” must be in the field of chronic disease management
A stitch in time saves nine. Never has that saying been more apt than in the non-communicable disease epidemic, particularly chronic kidney disease, that is silently ravaging the African continent. Non-communicable diseases — also known in the medical community as “silent killers” — are a group of diseases whereby affected people suffer minimal or no…
Diabetes & Its Long-Term Implications
Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure worldwide. Yet, over 60% of adults in Africa who have diabetes do not know they have it — the highest percentage of undiagnosed diabetes in the world. The International Diabetes Federation estimates that about 19.4 million adults in Africa are currently living with diabetes, and an additional 45…
Understanding Chronic Kidney Disease
You have probably heard of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), or “kidney failure” as it is often called. Did you know that CKD is currently the 12th most common cause of death in the world? In fact, CKD is expected to become more common in the coming years, as urbanization spreads globally at break-neck speed. The prevalence of CKD is increasing globally — rapidly rising in Asia and Africa (while declining in North America and Europe). In 2017, an estimated 700M people worldwide were suffering from the disease, with ~70M of them in Sub-Saharan Africa.
