Non communicable diseases are known as silent killers. New cases are diagnosed on daily basis and most often accidentally through a hospital visit for a different complaint or through routine screening like the one that NHELPA organized recently. October is breast cancer awareness month and October 12th is world sight day. To commemorate these two events, NHELPA in collaboration with the mobile eye clinic of the Presbyterian health services organized a sensitization and free eye consultation at the Nso community hall Yaounde, on October 5th 2024.
The event started at 8.15am and the activities of the day were checking of Blood pressure for all the participants from the age of 11years and above, weight and height measures then calculating the BMI to diagnosed obesity and overweight, FBS checks and educating women on the early and late signs of breast cancer through health education as well as teaching them self-breast examination. Participants were counselled and advised based on their results.
Participants were also educated on eye conditions and consulted for free for eye problems. In all 56 participants were screened for non-communicable diseases and 79 were consulted for eye problems. Out of the 56 that were screened for NCD 44 were females and 12 were males.10 participants were below 11 years and therefore not included in this statistics. 41 people had blood pressure values above normal and 23 had BMI values above normal values.
79 participants were screened for eye problems with statistics as follows males were 22, females 44 and children 13. The following eye problems were diagnosed conjunctivitis 34, operable matured cataracts 2, immature cataracts 8, refractive errors 20 and 6 cases had complicated eye problems and were referred to the hospital for better care.
In conclusion, October is breast cancer awareness month and the theme for this year is “No one should face breast cancer alone”. October 12th is world sight day. The theme for world sight day 2024 is ‘Children love your eyes’. In commemoration for these two events for health, NHELPA organized a screening campaign in the Nso community hall (Ngainso) in Simbock. This was meant to screen people for non-communicable diseases as well eye conditions. Most often people don’t have the time to go to health institutions for a health check. Bringing health care to them as part of community health helps to diagnose chronic conditions such as high