Accra, Sept. 24, GNA - Elmina in the Central Region, will this month host the San Francisco-based International Cardiovascular Health Alliance (ICHA), a non profit organisation, which aims at starting a pilot programme in the town to facilitate the elimination of cardiovascular diseases (CVD).

Mr. Leslie Salomone, a member of the organisation, who announced this in a statement, said the programme was in connection with a speech US President Barack Obama, made during his trip to Ghana that: " To build a prosperous future, Africa needs to shed corruption and tyranny and take on poverty and disease." Volunteer clinicians will visit Ghana to train health workers at the Elmina Urban Health Centre that caters for more than 50,000 patients.

The statement said ICHA would teach the local health workers how to quantify the risks of cardiovascular events to promote stringent lifestyle modification and managing of medications. In addition, ICHA will assist the local community to establish population wide community initiatives including culturally appropriate campaigns for diet medication and exercise groups. It said the choice of Elmina as ICHA's project was a result of the fact that the physician leading the group Dr. Sajatha Sankaran had worked in the town in 2005 as a medical Volunteer of the Edward A. Ulzen Memorial Foundation International Medical Programme (EAUMF), named after the late founding Registrar of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

The EAUMF has brought 54 healthcare volunteers to Elmina in the last four years. "We know we are in for an uphill battle, since we cardiovascular disease in the developing world is such a shockingly under- appreciated crisis, and the fact that CVD costs developing nations billions of dollars annually," the statement noted. ICHA comprise diverse group of doctors, medical students, educators, outreach workers and other professionals dedicated to the elimination of preventable cardiovascular diseases in developing countries.

Cardiovascular is the number one cause of death worldwide, killing more people globally than infectious diseases, nutritional deficiency and maternal/ prenatal conditions combined. Four out of five cases of CVD occur in developing countries. 80 per cent of cardiovascular disease is preventable. 24 Sept. 09