This information is contained in a communiqué signed by the general manager. Following the communiqué, the tests will take place at the Saint Padre Pio hospital in Akwa Nord. The team from Kumbo, it indicates, “will screen and consult children and adults for cardiovascular diseases in the Littoral region from April 24 to 25”.

The tests, the Catholic hospital indicates, will vary in price depending on whether those tested are old or new. “New patients would pay 34,000 FCFA for consultation and screening while old patients would pay 5,500 FCFA for follow-up,” it states.
The consultation, the communiqué also states, will run from 8:00a.m to 3:00p.m. daily. The hospital is asking all interested to come ready to buy drugs should they be prescribed, as medications will be available on site.

The Shisong Cardiac centre is the only existing one in the Central African Sub-region. It was officially inaugurated in Shisong on November 19,2009 by then Minister of Public Health, Andre Mama Fouda. It was created with overall objective to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular diseases, CVD, by providing quality low cost treatment to patients. The health facility is estimated to have brought hope to about 37,000 children and 500,000 adults with congenital cardiac disorders from within and out of Cameroon.

The screening exercise in Douala comes timely, as a study conducted in 2017 in some two health centres in Douala, revealed that the burden of sudden cardiac death in Cameroon, which is 33.6 deaths per 100 000 person per year, is close to the incidence reported in several Western and Asian populations. Scientists propose that prompt cardiopulmonary resuscitation is suboptimal and needs to be developed according to international recommendation.

The study also called for specific preventive strategies targeting the most vulnerable groups of young people and women should be deployed. It also revealed most sudden cardiac deaths, occurred during the night.