Hearing loss compounds Africans’ health

Africa’s damning health profile in preventable diseases and cases such as malaria, infant and maternal mortality, ravaging polio rate, diarrhoea, and other avoidable ailments was compounded recently by the World Health Organisation’s report that 40 million Africans are living with hearing loss. The report estimates that it costs the continent $27 million annually due to its significant impact on individuals and economies. The world body projects that the figure could climb to $54 million in 2030 if a drastic remedy is not applied. 

According to WHO, if untreated, hearing loss in children could delay language development with attendant risks of poor educational performances and limited career prospects among other developmental consequences. It also says it could cause isolation, loneliness, and a higher risk of depression and dementia in adults. The consequences of hearing loss on the personal and socio-economic lives of the continent are therefore huge, especially as the patients are generally rendered unproductive.

The report says 75 per cent of hearing loss in children is preventable as it is caused by infections, common ear diseases, and birth complications. It also says many countries do not have equipment for routine hearing screening for newborns.

According to the world body’s statistics, “more than 56 per cent of African countries have just a single Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist for every million people, whereas, in Europe, it is roughly 50 per million”, noting further that 75 percent of African countries have fewer than one audiologist and speech and language therapist for every million people.”
WHO says Africa has low access to hearing aids. While it estimates that 33 million Africans could benefit from hearing aids, a paltry 10 per cent have access to hearing aids because of the dearth of financing for Ear and Hearing Care services, leading to high costs for patients. Africa, the report says, lacks national policies and low implementation of EHC services.

For a continent already dying under the weight of puerile human capacity development, economic and infrastructural indices, this recent damning profile should shock its leaders into taking drastic action to redeem the health of its people for optimum human capacity advantage.  

As expected, Nigeria’s profile is horrific. The National Policy and Strategic Plan on Ear and Hearing Care (2019-2023), was not inaugurated until 2018 to provide strategic direction for EHC over the next five years, and to ensure the continuous advancement of EHC in Nigeria. Even after the inauguration, there was inadequate political will to fix the hearing loss challenges of the country. A 2021 report by The Sun newspaper says close to three years after the policy was put together, it had yet to be implemented.
The NPSPEHC document further reveals, “There is about one ENT specialist per 500,000 persons in Nigeria―that is 380 ENT Specialists—as against the WHO recommended ratio of 1 to 25,000. Similarly, Nigeria has one clinical audiologist per 50 million persons and one speech pathologist per 65 million persons amounting to merely four clinical audiologists and three speech pathologists in the whole of the country.”

This horrendous situation and the hopeless profile of Nigeria’s health sector as one of the worst globally in preventable health situations are pointers to the fact that, though yet to be declared, the health sector is already in an emergency situation. 

A huge population of Nigerians have hearing loss without realising it as our motor parks, churches, mosques, clubs, and other public places are homes of noise pollution. Experts say a large percentage of newborns also suffer hearing loss as the nation does not carry out pre-natal screening on them within the first 48 hours of birth.

There should be collaborative efforts between the government and the private sector to mobilise adequate resources to arrest this ugly situation. There should also be sufficient and coordinated advocacy strategy to sensitise people to detect early signs of hearing loss, especially among children, and take urgent action to correct them. Stringent efforts must be made by the government to make pre-natal and other screening equipment and adequate trained personnel available while also regulating noise pollution.

The three tiers of government must set up hearing units at healthcare facilities in rural and urban areas, especially schools and workplaces. There should be a strategic move by the government to put attractive measures in place to bring back ENT and other health specialists who have departed the country for greener pastures. 

African governments, regional and sub-regional organisations must have workable programmes to correct hearing loss and its accompanying huge effects on the continent given its personal and socio-economic consequences for Africa.