Status report on ear and hearing care in the WHO African Region
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that over 430 million people globally live with disabling hearing loss and that by 2050 over 700 million people will have this condition. Africa alone has about 40 million people with hearing loss, a prevalence of 3.6%.
It is projected that 54 million people in Africa will have disabling hearing loss by 2030, and this will increase to 97 million people by 2050. Failure to address hearing loss costs African economies US$ 27.1 billion dollars annually. Acknowledging the rapid increase in the number of people with hearing loss, the 70th World Health Assembly adopted resolution WHA70.13 that calls for concerted global public health action in a bid to prevent hearing loss and ensure rehabilitation of those affected. A major action was the publication of the World report on hearing, which highlights the H.E.A.R.I.N.G. package of EHC interventions to address hearing loss. The nterventions in the package are hearing screening and intervention, ear disease prevention and management, access to technologies, rehabilitation services, improved communication, noise reduction and greater community engagement. To be well placed to address hearing loss in Africa, WHO conducted a situation analysis on EHC.
This situation analysis report outlines the status of EHC and health system capacity with respect to the H.E.A.R.I.N.G interventions and provides specific country profiles.