Non-communicable diseases (“NCD(s)”) are emerging as the leading health problem in Sub- Saharan Africa (“SSA”). The Blueprint for Success was borne out of the need to improve access to medicines in developing healthcare systems through sustainable partnerships and was initiated by Takeda in partnership with Amref, and the Cancer Alliance to tackle the burden of NCDs in SSA (“Blueprint for Success”).
The Vision
”To create an ecosystem for comprehensive cancer control in Sub Saharan Africa”
The vision of Blueprint for Success is to address the barriers affecting NCD awareness such as prevention, screening deficiencies, and insufficient diagnosis infrastructure and treatment possibilities. The Blueprint for Success Global Charter covers the following six key commitments:
- Deliver impact – through the creation of sustainable healthcare systems
- Ensure transparency – from all members
- Raise awareness – for communities and their healthcare workers Improve access – to NCD therapies and diagnostics, whilst also addressing innovative financing solutions to address barriers and ensure sustainability
- Build partnerships – across different industries for effective change in developing healthcare systems
Spark innovation – to engage communities in hard to reach places and find new financial solutions
The Initiatives
The closing infrastructure gap initiative aims to refine the primary healthcare facilities and services hypertension, breast and cervical cancer by providing awareness, quality diagnostics, treatment and better diagnostic training for healthcare workers to service patients in an attempt to improve care (“PHCInitiative”).
The endeavours at Meru County in Kenya focuses on enabling community healthcare workers (“CHW”), nurses and clinicians to provide awareness initiatives and pre-screening for NCDs. If pre-screening identifies the possibility of an NCD, it is being aspired that further diagnosis, as medically indicated, will be facilitated either via a local laband or at a level five hospital. The patients will then be able to access local care and treatment, if clinically appropriate. The initiative intends to increase the awareness and education of community healthcare workers, nurses and clinicians, in order for them to better detect, diagnose and treat NCDs in a local setting. The initiative also aims to enrol physicians and specialists in a fixed rotational programme where they visit the healthcare centre to work with patients and to support and train local healthcare team.
The Centre of Excellence
The Blueprint for Success initiative was born out of a need to provide patients in low income countries (“LIC(s)”) and lower middle income countries(“LMIC(s)”) with a centre that would service their NCD needs, from prevention or diagnosis to treatment and palliative care. In doing that this location would become a NCD Centre of Excellence for the region. Meru County in Kenya is in an area where we, the partners could measure success through improved patient outcomes and ensure that key learning and knowledge takes place between healthcare practitioners and to patients and families.
