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CARDIOVASCULAR JOURNAL OF AFRICA • Volume 28, No 4, July/August 2017
AFRICA
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PASCAR–SCC seminar on hypertension and heart failure at the
Douala General Hospital (11–12 October 2016), supported by
the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fogarty International
Center (Advancing Science for Global Health).
Over 300 participants, including experienced, mid and early
medical scientists, both national and international, were invited
to discuss the science of hypertension and heart failure. This
consisted of didactic lectures, abstracts (10 oral, 12 posters), a
clinical visit and more than 50 oral communications for a target
audience of about 300 participants.
International faculty consisted of experts from the PASCAR
task force on hypertension and heart failure and the Mary
McKillop Institute for Health Research: Center for Research
Excellence for reducing inequalities in cardiovascular disease
burden at the Australian Catholic University (ACU). These
experts were Profs Karen Sliwa, Simon Stewart and Ana O
Mocumbi, Drs Dike Ojji and Kemi Tibazarwa, George Nel and
Ms Ashley Kimberley Keates.
Pre-meeting activities: (9 October: pacemaker
marathon; 10 October: mass media conference)
These activities were aimed at increasing public and policy
makers’ awareness on cardiac disease in general, as well as
narrowing the gap between pacemaker needs and safety, and the
current status of pacemaker implantation in Cameroon. There
was a pacemaker marathon involving people with implanted
pacemakers under close monitoring, and the launching of the
‘Pace4life Cameroon’ project.
Day 1: Joint PASCAR–SCC clinical symposium on
hypertension and heart failure
The opening ceremony was chaired by Dr Yves Monkam who
offered a word of welcome to all participants and highlighted the
importance of such an event for the advancement of medicine
and research. He also commended young physician-researchers
whose abstracts were accepted for presentation.
The first part of this symposium was the PASCAR and
Medtronic pacing and heart-failure training session, which was
chaired by Drs Félicité Kamdem, Yves Monkam, Archange Nzali
and Anastase Dzudie. Dr Loryane Nganhyim (CRENC affiliate)
presented the LOng-TErm Prognosis of Patients with clinical
indication for a cardiac Pacemaker Implantation (LOTEPPI)
study, in which only about one in two patients had access to
cardiac pacemakers but three in four patients with cardiac
pacemakers had improved quality of life and likelihood of
survival over three years. Re-using recycled cardiac pacemakers
was suggested as an affordable alternative to new pacemakers in
resource-limited settings such as Cameroon.
MsKimberleyKeates (Australia) gave a talkon the epidemiology
of CVD in Africa. She highlighted that CVDs are common and
that all regions in Africa are affected. However a major challenge
remains the paucity of data, which limits detailed analyses of
the spectrum and burden of CVD. Prof K Sliwa encouraged
the publication of all studies conducted, as this will allow the
possibility of future use of data, as well as a better or more realistic
contextual analysis of CVD in Africa and Cameroon in particular.
She also discussed the findings of the HOPE III trial.
4-6
The second part was the hypertension and heart failure
symposium, chaired by Emeritus Prof Walinjom FT Muna
(Cameroon), Prof Simon Stewart (Australia), Prof Karen Sliwa
(South Africa) and Dr Yves Monkam (Cameroon). Dr Monkam
offered a word of welcome to international faculty, especially
from PASCAR, on behalf of the Cameroon Cardiac Society.
This was followed byDr Biholong’s presentation ‘Management
of mild–moderate hypertension’,
7
and Dr Ba Ahmadou’s
presentation on new recommendations from the European
Society of Cardiology (ESC) on the treatment of heart failure
in 2016.
8
Dr Dzudie presented ‘What every general practitioner
should know regarding the management of hypertension’ and
he enumerated and explained the PASCAR 10 pillars to beat
hypertension in Africa.
3
The final part of this session was the NIH Fogarty
non-communicable diseases leadership activity. Mr Ferdinant
Mbidzenyuy presented ‘How to foster a research culture
in limited-resource settings: the case of Cameroon Baptist
Convention’. This was followed by Prof Mocumbi’s presentation
‘Building and maintaining a scientific reputation’. The talk
was drawn from her own experience in Mozambique. She laid
emphasis on the mentor–mentee system as one of the factors
that facilitate building and maintaining a scientific reputation.
Fig. 1.
Group picture, PASCAR symposium on hypertension and heart failure.