Development of the certificate course in the management of hypertension in Africa (CCMH-AFRICA)

Background/Introduction In response to the call by the world health organization to reduce premature deaths from non-communicable diseases by 25% by the year 2025 (25×25), the pan-african society of cardiology (PASCAR) in partnership with several organizations including the world heart federation have developed the 10-point urgent action plan to improve detection, treatment and control of hypertension in Africa. Priority 6 of this action plan is to promote a task-shifting/task-sharing approach in the management of hypertension. Purpose This capacity building initiative aims to enhance the knowledge, skills and core competences of primary health care physicians in the management of hypertension and related complications. Methods In a collaborative approach with the international society of hypertension, the British and Irish hypertension society, the public health foundation of India and the centre for chronic disease control, the PASCAR hypertension taskforce held a continental faculty meeting in Kenya on the 25th and 26th of February 2018 to review and discuss a process by which effective contextualization and implementation of the Indian hypertension management course can be done on the African continent. Results A tailored African course in terms of evidence based learning, up-to-date curriculum and on-the-job-training was developed with a robust monitoring and evaluation strategy. The course will be offered on a modular basis with judicious mix of case studies, group discussions and contact sessions with great flexibility to accommodate the participant's queries. Conclusions Hypertension affects millions of people in Africa and if left untreated, is a major cause of heart disease and stroke. CCMH-AFRICA will train in the next 10 years 25,000 certified general physicians and 50,000 nurses capable of adequately managing uncomplicated hypertension, thereby freeing the few available specialists for focus on severe or complicated cases.