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Non communicable diseases

Dr. Atul Pavnikar is a Non-communicable Disease (NCD) Medical Officer working at an NCD Clinic in the Indore District Hospital in Indore, India. Over the course of his career, Dr. Pavnikar has seen the positive impact of preventive care in relation to NCDs. However, due to resource constraints at the NCD Clinic, he rarely has the time or resources to provide prevention services to his patients. “We don’t prevent NCDs, we only treat.”

Young men pulling carts, women selling groceries, children playing ‘kalongolongo’ (cookery game), welcome to Ribakia Community Unit (CU), Embakasi West sub-county, Nairobi County in Kenya. Ribakia is home to thousands of households, striving hard to put food on the table. This zeal, however, sometimes comes with neglect of personal health with preference for easily available fast foods, poor hygiene, lack of exercise, and lack of adequate rest. This unhealthy lifestyle has made it difficult for some household members to manage contracted non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like asthma and diabetes. It is with this in mind that GSK, in partnership with Amref Health Africa, developed training on managing asthma and diabetes, rolled out through Leap, the mHealth platform.

Treatment of type 1 diabetes involves daily injections of insulin, regular exercise, proper nutrition, and emotional support. This is a huge responsibility for anyone, even more so for a young child. When a child is diagnosed, the entire family is affected as everyone must adjust to a new way of living. With the right level of support, family members can play a central role in helping their children manage their treatment with confidence. Christian has type 1 diabetes and was diagnosed at the age of three. Getamesay has adopted his son’s lifestyle and has created a home where diet and Christian’s daily treatment needs are routine. But it was not an easy journey.

One morning in April 2012, Funani Juliet was having breakfast in her Pietersburg, South Africa, home when food started to drip down the right side of her face. Her lips couldn’t hold what she was eating. The retired primary school teacher looked in the mirror and saw nothing odd, but called a friend right away. The friend wanted to take her to a doctor, but Funani opted to go to church to pray. But soon her face started to shake and became contorted to the right side. When she went to the doctor, she found out she had hypertension and high cholesterol.

When Ronaldo Jose Pineda Wieselberg was two, he told his mother he wanted to be a doctor. A math teacher, she went back to correcting papers, and he returned to his cars and jigsaw puzzles. Two weeks later, he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Instead of an obstacle, the disease just cemented his decision. Now 24, the Brazilian native is a medical school grad, an intern at Holy House of Mercy in Sao Paulo and an aspiring endocrinologist.

This is the story about Bruno Carrattini, a young man from Uruguay who has been living with a non-communicable disease (NCD), type 1 diabetes, for 12 years. Today, Bruno has the knowledge and tools needed to have control over the disease, but this was not always the case. Bruno comes from a big family – he and his twin brother are the youngest of seven siblings. His mother is a public school teacher who always made sacrifices to support their family and his father, who was a public servant, died of a brain tumor when Bruno was 16 years old. This tragedy forced Bruno to start working at a young age to contribute to his household’s income since the family was practically bankrupt. But he never left school; Bruno continued to work hard to graduate from high school while helping his family, until one year later, when he turned 17, and Bruno was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

On the benches in the central waiting area of the Tsopeng health clinic in Lobatse, a shy, soft-spoken mother of three waits to see a doctor. This morning, Kutlo Nkuetsho traveled by bus to Lobatse – a sprawling town in Botswana, encircled by hills, close to the border with South Africa – prepared to hear bad news and convinced that she had cancer.