Addressing barriers to primary health-care services for noncommunicable diseases in the African Region

The World Health Organization (WHO) Package of essential noncommunicable disease interventions (known as WHO PEN) was designed for the prevention, early detection, treatment and care of diabetes, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases and associated risk factors. This article draws attention to where action is needed to accelerate progress and improve uptake of the WHO package. It identifies seven priority areas: (i) political commitment; (ii) service re-design; (iii) workforce capacity strengthening; (iv) treatment protocols; (v) resource gap analysis; (vi) implementation at scale; and (vii) support from multilateral institutions.

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A. Tesema, R. Joshi, S. Abimbola, W. Simeon Ajisegiri, P. Narasimhan and D. Peiris (2020) Addressing barriers to primary health-care services for noncommunicable diseases in the African Region. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2020;98:906-908. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.20.271239