Role of Echocardiography in Research into Neglected Cardiovascular Diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa

Echocardiography is a non-invasive imaging technique that has been important in improving the quality and reliability of cardiovascular diagnosis, but access to it remains limited in most developing countries in Africa due to the costs of the technique and the lack of highly specialized personnel to perform it. Training in echocardiography is part of the postgraduate residency training requirements in cardiology in most African countries, despite the absence of an accreditation process such as that designed in Europe and United States of America (Ogah et al., 2006). While the use of transthoracic echocardiography has been spreading slowly around the continent, transesophageal echocardiography is still limited to few centers.