In June, the Global Partners of the RHD Action Alliance visited Uganda to learn more about the work being undertaken by the Country Partners. The trip involved four intensive days of visits to various project sites, and meetings with key stakeholders. With support from Medtronic Philanthropy, the RHD Action Uganda team has worked for two years in the regions of Lubowa and Gulu to leverage HIV infrastructure for delivery of RHD care to neighbouring populations. Members of the RHD Action Alliance met with the cardiologists, primary care physicians, nurses, school teachers, and most importantly, people living with RHD that have been involved in RHD Action Uganda’s work.

In addition to providing care to a large patient registry of over 1200 patients with RHD since 2013, the RHD Action Uganda collaboration has ongoing initiatives to improve adherence to penicillin, management of heart failure symptoms, and access to anticoagulation monitoring. In 2015, the team will embark on two new initiatives to build a school-based primary prevention program and to improve diagnosis of RHD and other cardiovascular diseases using handheld ultrasound in Lira. The June site visit included a visit to Lira hospital to assess the feasibility of this project. This project illustrates an overarching theme of collaboration to build paediatric and adult cardiovascular care infrastructure in regions outside of Kampala. Central to this effort is a program for training Ugandan physicians in Cleveland, USA and on the ground at the Uganda Heart Institute. The team met with some of the cardiologists and paediatricians who have benefitted from this training including Dr. Emmy Okello and Dr. James Kayima (interventional cardiology), Dr. Isaac Ssinabulya (heart failure) and Dr. Grace Mirembe (non-invasive cardiac/vascular imaging).

The RHD Action Uganda team was honoured to host the Global Partners in June and look forward to advancing the RHD agenda locally and globally through advocacy and ongoing engagement with policy makers.