Chronic Diseases

Management Sciences for Health (MSH) celebrated 10 Years of Improving the Health of Women and Children in Nigeria with 250 stakeholders and supporters at a special event in Abuja on March 31, 2016. Distinguished guests included the chairman of the Nigerian House of Representatives, director of the Federal Ministry of Health in Nigeria, high-level representatives from state governments and partner organizations, and more.

After a rousing rendition of “Arise, Oh Compatriots,” the Nigerian national anthem, Country Director, Dr. Zipporah Kpamor, welcomed participants and underscored the intention for the day’s two round-table panel discussions:

In Nigeria, 150 women and 2,300 children die every day from preventable causes. One in five children won’t live to see their fifth birthday. This event can help continue conversations on what we can do to end preventable deaths among women, children, and young people.

Currently, MSH’s partnerships for health system strengthening in Nigeria reach nearly 560,000 people through four projects.

A woman. A newborn. A child. In many countries, their basic health and rights are tenuous. These women, newborns, and children are the health system.

A woman is ostracized: abandoned by her husband, her family, and her community. She suffered a fistula after giving birth to her son. After 20-plus years, an operation repairs her fistula; now, she is teaching again, and a part of the community.

When my daughter got sick, I took her to a clinic in my neighborhood. They gave her cough syrup for seven days.

I thought she was getting better, but it was apparent that she was still ill. After another examination, they referred her to St. Paul Hospital in Addis Ababa where they put her on oxygen and started taking blood sample after sample and injection after injection for a month. Her condition did not get better so they gave her another medicine. The doctors then decided to take blood from her back… only then did they know it was tuberculosis.

~ Atsede Tefera

Tuberculosis (TB) kills more people each year than any other infectious disease, causing over 1.5 million deaths globally. More than a quarter of cases are in Africa, the region with the highest burden of TB disease relative to population. Children are amongst the most vulnerable, and all too often children with TB remain in the shadows, undiagnosed, uncounted, and untreated. Today, more than 53 million children worldwide are infected with TB and over 400 die each day from this preventable and curable disease. 

In 2012, the United Nations unanimously passed a resolution endorsing the concept of universal health coverage (UHC), urging governments everywhere to “provide all people with access to affordable, quality health care services”. Management Sciences for Health (MSH) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Systems for Improved Access to Pharmaceuticals and Services (SIAPS) Program are among global champions for UHC and joined global leaders celebrating UHC’s notable inclusion in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) last Fall. Now, we continue to help countries face the obstacles of making UHC a reality.

Access to medicines has not always been at the forefront of the global discourse on UHC, which instead has tended to focus on financing. UHC programs must include adequate health financing and coverage of essential medicines if they are to deliver meaningful health outcomes. Policymakers attempting to establish and maintain UHC programs therefore need to have a sound understanding of the pharmaceutical sector and those pharmaceutical system components that must be considered to ensure ready access to the pharmaceuticals needed to support any UHC program.

At an event discussing maternal, newborn, and child survival, MSH’s country representative from Nigeria called for more attention on gestational diabetes (GDM) in her country.

The January 19 summit in Washington, DC, titled “Reaching the Last 25 Percent: Saving the Lives of Women and Newborns Through a Life Cycle Approach,” was convened by MSH, Novo Nordisk, and the NCD Roundtable. The meeting’s keynote address and two panel discussions focused on how governments, civil society, and the private sector in low- and middle-income countries are addressing maternal mortality and morbidity from non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

During a panel titled “Examples of NCD Integration in Maternal Health,” MSH Nigeria Country Representative Dr. Zipporah Kpamor discussed a recent pilot program that uses mobile health technology to measure blood glucose levels in pregnant women with GDM. The program aimed to provide women with faster, more convenient, and confidential blood glucose monitoring and a way to limit appointments, and reduce waiting time and transportation costs. The program was funded by MSH’s Internal Innovations Challenge (INCH) fund.