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Specialty Healthcare Program Targets Stroke and Hearing Loss in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

September 2, 2025|
Strategic Health Initiatives Briefing By Africa CDC Leaders With Map And Stats Projection

By Julia Van Den Bergh, BBF Director of Strategic Initiatives

Every year, the World Health Organization (WHO) publishes a report that measures worldwide disability and death from major diseases, injuries, and risk factors. By tracking progress within and between countries, the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) is an important tool for clinicians, researchers, and policy makers.1

In 2021, the GBD highlighted that global life expectancy has increased by 6.2 years since 1990. This is largely due to lower mortality rates for diarrhea and respiratory infections in the general population, and stroke, cancers, and ischemic heart disease in people over the age of 55. Eastern sub-Saharan Africa saw the largest increase in life expectancy among regions, thanks to efforts to combat communicable diseases (ex: diarrhea, tuberculosis, lower respiratory infections, HIV/AIDS, and measles). However, COVID-19 derailed health improvements in many locations.2

Today, non-communicable diseases (NCDs, also known as chronic diseases) represent a rising threat. WHO describes NCDs as “one of the greatest health and development challenges of this century, now outnumbering infectious diseases as the top killers globally”. 3,4 This is particularly true of stroke and heart disease.

  • Top Causes of Death in Low-Income Countries: Lower respiratory infections, stroke, ischemic heart disease, and malaria4
  • Top Causes of Death in Lower-Middle-Income-Countries: COVID-19, ischemic heart disease, stroke, and COPD4
  • Top Causes of Years Lived with Disability Globally: Lower back pain, depressive disorders, headache disorders, and hearing loss5

To help address these challenges, BBF launched the “specialty healthcare program” in 2023, initially focusing on neurology and hearing loss. This program provides pharmaceuticals, diagnostics/equipment, and fellowship training grants for physicians in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

BBF’s Neurology Initiative focuses on stroke (categorized as both a cardiovascular and neurological condition) and other diseases such as migraine, dementia, and epilepsy. Between 2022 and 2025, almost 40% of BBF’s donated pharmaceuticals addressed cardiovascular diseases in Central America and the Caribbean. To expand this program to Africa, we reached out to Dr. Deanna Saylor, Assistant Professor of Neurology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Saylor is a neuro-infectious disease and neuro-immunology specialist based in Lusaka, Zambia, where she established the first inpatient neurology service at the University Teaching Hospital. There were no Zambian neurologists when Dr. Saylor arrived in 2018. As of 2023, Dr. Saylor trained nine neurologists and is working to integrate life-saving nursing protocols for stroke into the national guidelines. BBF is reviewing Dr. Saylor’s needs and priorities to best support her program.

We partnered with Dr. Greg Basura to launch the Hearing Loss Initiative. Dr. Basura is the Chair of the Humanitarian Committee for the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. He runs the Otologic Surgical Training Fellowship at the University of Cape Town to train ENT surgeons from African LMICs in otology, lateral skull base surgery, and cochlear implant surgery. Dr. Basura also launched the African Otologic Society, establishing a community of providers who discuss and address otology needs in Africa. BBF is sponsoring the initiation of a second site for the Otologic Surgical Training Fellowship in Uganda and assessing the need for solar-powered hearing aids and 3D printed instruments.

References

  1. IHME. GBD History. https://www.healthdata.org/research-analysis/about-gbd/history
  2. Global Burden of Disease 2021: Findings from the GBD 2021 Study. 5/16/2024. https://www.healthdata.org/research-analysis/library/global-burden-disease-2021-findings-gbd-2021-study
  3. United Nations. Noncommunicable diseases now ‘top killers globally’ – UN health agency report. 9/21/2022. https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/09/1127211
  4. World Health Organization. The Top 10 Causes of Death. 8/7/2024. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death
  5. GBD 2021 Diseases and Injuries Collaborators. Global incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability (YLDs), disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and healthy life expectancy (HALE) for 371 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021. The Lancet. 5/18/2024. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)00757-8/fulltext
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