Note: World Lung Foundation united with The Union North America. From January 2016, the combined organization is known as “Vital Strategies.”
(Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and New York, USA) – World Lung Foundation (WLF) announced it has launched the Pulmonary Medicine Fellowship Program, an initiative to train the first generation of lung health specialists in Ethiopia. In partnership with the Addis Ababa University and the Ethiopian Ministry of Health, the program will yield up to ten graduates over the next three years and is expected to become self-sustaining within 5 years.
The first Fellows began a rigorous program of chest medicine, designed by WLF and Addis Ababa University, with content specifically tailored to the local hospitals and population. Fellows will spend 24 months pursuing inpatient clinical rotations supervised by the faculty and will participate in weekly outpatient clinics for at least 18 months. Upon graduation, the Fellows will have achieved the status of qualified pulmonary physicians based on standards set by leading American and European academic pulmonary divisions.
The Pulmonary Medicine Fellowship Program and physician salaries are being funded by World Lung Foundation, the Swiss Lung Foundation and the Ministry of Health in Ethiopia. The program has recruited faculty from leading American pulmonary training programs, including Columbia University, Brown University, New York University, Emory University, and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Rotating faculty will be physically present in Ethiopia throughout the duration of the program.
Lung health in Ethiopia
Ethiopia is the second largest country in Africa, with a population of 83 million people, and ranks in the world’s bottom 15 in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. Diseases such as tuberculosis (TB), acute respiratory infections, chronic obstructive lung disease, lung cancer, and asthma are major public health problems in Ethiopia. The rate of TB is 261/100,000, placing Ethiopia among the 22 high-burden countries in the world. Rates of acute respiratory infections are among the highest in the world and rates of asthma, COPD and lung cancer are rising. The burden of chronic lung disease (especially in women) due to exposure to indoor air pollution and outdoor air pollution is substantial.
A recent report from the World Bank, entitled “Ethiopia: Improving Health Service Delivery,” notes that in efforts to improve health care delivery and outcomes “the key constraint was the lack of specialized doctors” to provide basic services at the primary and secondary care level. There is only one public sector lung health specialist in Ethiopia and this lack of specialist physicians is a significant obstacle to reducing morbidity and mortality from these diseases.
Dr. Ahmed Reja, Executive Director of the College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University, said, “The lack of specialized physicians traps Ethiopia in a negative spiral of increased lung disease as individuals remain untreated and communities remain unprotected. WLF’s commitment will reverse this spiral and set Ethiopia on a path to care for thousands who get none at the moment.”
Dr. Neil Schluger, Chief Scientific Officer, World Lung Foundation, noted: “The lack of qualified specialists impacts developing countries in three ways. First, there is no one to diagnose and manage lung disease at an individual patient level. Second, there is no one to assess public health and medical services, or to develop the surveillance tools that would inform public policy and health delivery strategies. Third, they are not visible to act as role models or to train the next generation of health professionals. It is our hope this program will kick-start a positive cycle of treatment and training that will become self-sustaining and robust enough to meet the needs of the whole country.”
Dr. Neil Schluger will direct the program. He is also Chief, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine and Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University in New York. Co-director of the program will be Dr. Jane Carter, Associate Professor of Medicine at the Warren Alpert School of Medicine of Brown University and Director of the Brown Kenya Program.