Academic and Community Leaders Partnership for Prevention and Control of Emerging Diseases: Lesson From Rwanda

Saturday, 27 July 2019

Alice Nyirazigama, MSN
School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Rwanda, Kigali, Rwanda
Oluyinka Adejumo, DlittetPhil, RN, RPN, RNE
School of Nursing and Midwifery, NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing/University of Rwanda College of Medicine and Health Sciences/ HRH Rwanda program, Kigali City, Rwanda
Sandrine Dushimimana, MSN
School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Rwanda, Huye, Rwanda

Introduction: Emerging communicable and non-communicable diseases, have public health burdens and socioeconomic impacts worldwide especially in developing countries including Rwanda. This makes these diseases a priority for prevention and control. This presentation demonstrates the importance of a nursing school’s partnership with the local community leaders in the prevention and control of those diseases in a district in Rwanda.

Purpose: To present the activities involved in a School of Nursing and a district community partnership for prevention and control of emerging communicable and non-communicable diseases

Methods: A community in Gicumbi district of Rwanda was the setting for the project. The school of nursing had signed a memorandum of understanding with the district administration to provide expertise from the School for disease prevention and management. Six activities were identified for the project to include diseases prevention, health promotion, prevention of malnutrition, promotion of hygiene, increase adherence to health insurance, and good customer Care. The district authorities met with all community local leaders under their management to make them understand the partnership with the school, the role of partnership and what they are required to make the partnership a success. Nurse Educators and students from the school of nursing, University of Rwanda approached recognized selected district local leaders to address emerging communicable and non-communicable diseases as a priority identified by the School during community outreach. A systematic approach was used to prioritize the most affected community and most serious communicable and non-communicable diseases, which were addressed by the screening of diabetes and hypertension as well as conducting health education on transmission and prevention. This included education on the early screening and surveillance, methods of controlling vectors, as well as reservoirs, how to undertake personal protection, immunization, use of purified water and environmental sanitation. All of the activities were conducted at the community level. Nurse educators and students worked closely with local community leaders as they mobilized the population for better outcomes.

Observation, reports, group discussions and informal interviews methods were used to collect data about the effectiveness of involving local community leaders for the prevention and control of diseases.

Results: After one year of the implementation, the results found out that among 6 activities to be done in the academic year 2015-2016, four of them were achieved beyond expectation. The project reported that 325 health education sessions on Malaria, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Ascardiasis, Diabetes and Hypertension were conducted in 65 different communities, 83 New Kitchen Gardens were constructed to prevent malnutrition, different types of food as well as domestic animals were given to poor families who had children with malnutrition, 25 latrines were constructed to prevent fecal oral diseases, different screening activities on diabetes and hypertension have been conducted, community based health insurance was given to 21 patients to promote early access to health care.

Conclusion: The project succeeded due to good communication and strong collaboration between academic and community leaders which contributed a lot in the prevention and control of emerging communicable and non-communicable diseases among community members. Community leaders have knowledge about local community conditions which can be useful to put in place targeted interventions to reduce their burden. This can be done by identifying priority areas that require attention and mobilizing community members to action. The present intervention proved that leaders can influence and motivate communities to take the lead in the protection of their health. There is a need to strengthen the academic and community local leaders partnership for prevention and control of emerging communicable and non-communicable diseases which eventually will help in the achievement of sustainable development goals especially the third one which promotes the good health and well being.