Posts or Comments 19 March 2024

Archive for "Chronic/NCDs"



Chronic/NCDs &Community &Training Bill Brieger | 08 Jan 2022

Freedom Park Lagos Hosts Revolving Hearts Foundation CPR Training & AED Presentation

In their 2021 presentation at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, “Hands-only CPR Training Program of Secondary School Students in Ibadan, Nigeria”, Olufunso Odunukan and colleagues of the Revolving Heart Foundation mentioned that plans were underway to expand the training. Below, they share their recent public training in Lagos, Nigeria.

Freedom Park Lagos played host to the Revolving Hearts Foundation (RHF) – a non-governmental organisation which advocates Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) trainings and more of the presence/ use of Automated External Defibrillator (AED) in public places in Nigeria (and by extension Africa). The foundation represented by its visionary Dr. Olufunso Odunukan, an interventional cardiologist based in the United States, took a wide cadre of staff – from management to the most junior level, and vendor representatives through a detailed and practical session of administering CPR in a bid to save more lives and reduce loss due to not-quick-enough basic interventions in the face of a cardiac arrest or someone passing out due to a heart attack.

The NGO also presented an AED to the management of Freedom Park and in the same training showed how to set up the device following previously programmed instructions on the gadget. After that, with the use of mannequins and simulated AED materials, the RHF representative Dr. Odunukan took the participants through a very hands-on and practical experience of deploying CPR in a model situation. There was a video presentation that detailed what to do in the event a person suffers a cardiac arrest in a public place, at home, on the sidewalk, on stage or similar places.

The participants who included a wide array – cleaners, vendor workers, senior staff and middle management all gave good feedback as to the extent and impact that the training would have, even beyond the four walls of the Park. They also participated in a skit of a proper situation where they might need to take charge or be part of helping in an emergency situation, especially with the benefit of the lessons they had picked up in the training.

Dr. Odunukan equally advocated that this shouldn’t be a one-off session as the training could be replicated from time to time, so that everyone is prepared and savvy in the proper manner to be able to intervene and save lives, at least as a first aid in such situations, until professional medical assistance arrives. After the latter, on behalf of RHF, he presented the AED to the management of Freedom Park represented by the C.O.O.  Ms. Iyabo Aboaba who gladly accepted the device and reiterated the necessity of such gesture with the pledge to put it to good use, in line with the vision of the NGO to save more lives.

The training which lasted about 1hour 30 minutes ended with FAQs and an interactive and enlightening session based on the model skit and how to replicate an efficient process in the event of a real-life situation.

Chronic/NCDs &NCDs &Schools &Training Bill Brieger | 19 Nov 2021

Hands-only CPR Training Program of Secondary School Students in Ibadan, Nigeria

NCDs are increasingly being recognized as health problems in Nigeria and other LMICs.  Here, Bolanle Akinyele, Olufunso Odunukan, Oluwaseyi Bolorunduro, and William Brieger describe a Pilot project to help high school students learn to perform CPR through a Combination Virtual and In-person Learning. This is being presented at the 2021 American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Annual Meeting.

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is estimated to have an average global incidence of 55 adults per 100,000 person-years. However, despite advances in medical care and technology, survival to hospital discharge remains abysmally low at 8-10%. In low to middle income countries like Nigeria, where cardiovascular disease is rising but emergency response systems are poor, the rate of survival after OHCA is lower.

Interventions such as bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training and automated external defibrillator (AED) use are effective, scalable, and low-cost interventions that can reduce the OHCA mortality. Training schoolchildren to perform Hands-only CPR has been shown to increase bystander CPR.

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Peer Educator’s Program (CPEP) is a community-based program in Ibadan, Nigeria, designed enhance understanding of CPR in secondary school students. The American Heart Association’s school health module was adapted. The training was run jointly by staff of the four pilot schools, a Nigerian NGO, and the Revolving Hearts Foundation, Atlanta.

The training had both in-person and virtual components due to COVID-19 travel restrictions on Atlanta based partners. Here we present the results of training on knowledge, comfort level and perceived barriers of performing hands-only CPR.

A pre-training survey was conducted in February 2021 using convenience sampling that also was used to recruit participants. Pre- and post- training responses were matched by participants to assess the changes. Data were analyzed using Stata 16.1 software. A paired t-test analysis was conducted. The primary outcome was a percentage change in mean knowledge scores and secondary outcome was a change in comfort level and perceived barriers pre- and post- training.

A total of 45 secondary school students from 4 schools completed the tests. Females comprised 31.1% of students and the average age was 15.02 + 0.18 years. Paired t-test showed a significant change of 44.6% (p <0.0001) in the mean knowledge score. There was also an increase in comfort level in performing hands-only CPR, and a decrease in perceived barriers.

Trainees have started sharing what they learned through skits at school assemblies. Planning is underway to follow-up on training and to expand to other schools and states.

PS: as a followup another training session with a new group of 45 students and 15 teachers was conducted. The students made videos of their understanding of CPR from the program so it could be used for peer education, and most of them were pretty good and creative.

Chronic/NCDs &Epidemiology &Mortality &Severe Malaria Bill Brieger | 19 Sep 2013

Are non-communicable diseases actually communicable?

Much of the discussion around global health and post-Millennium Development Goals focuses on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) including cardiovascular problems, diabetes, cancers and the the like.  While it is important to recognize that low income nations are not plagued with both communicable and non-communicable diseases, we do not want the greater focus on NCDs in richer countries to overshadow the problems of malaria, pneumonia, TB, diarrhea and other child killers in poorer countries.

dscn7742-chw-flipchart.jpgA major reason for us not to lose focus on communicable diseases was recently reported from the Wellcome Trust on research they have supported in Malawi. The researchers found that the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, is able to “cause inflammation in blood vessel walls, making them more sticky so that the infected red blood cells can cling to the sides. Being able to stick to the blood vessels in vital organs allows the parasite to hide away from the immune system, a process called sequestration. When it occurs in the brain it causes a more severe form of the disease called cerebral malaria, associated with seizures, coma and sometimes death.”

The researchers also surmised that if this complication does not kill people in childhood, the damage to blood vessel walls can have more long lasting effects. In particular they noted that, “Chronic changes to the blood vessels like these could an important contributing factor to cardiovascular disease later in life.”

The link between malaria and Endemic Burkitt lymphoma (eBL) continues to be explored. Recently adding to this long history of eBL research, Peter Aka and colleagues reported that. “Anti–HRP-II (Plasmodium falciparum histidine-rich protein-II) antibodies suggest that recent malaria infection triggers the onset of eBL.”

In a review of intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR) Demicheva and Crispi observed that, “Several clinical and experimental studies showed that IUGR fetuses present signs of cardiac dysfunction in utero that persist postnatally and may condition higher cardiovascular risk later in life.” In endemic regions, malaria in pregnancy is a major cause of IUGR and thus low birth weight.

Preventing malaria therefore saves lives now and in the future. Ignoring malaria now adds greater burdens to the health system and national productivity tomorrow. We need to maintain our investments in malaria both globally and in and by endemic countries themselves.