Republique Democratique du Congo, Africa

Personnel

• Dr Etienne Bahati
• Dr Jean Paul Okiata

ISAAC In DR Congo

Kinshasa, the capital of D R Congo is a big country with almost ten million habitants. The ISAAC Phase Three survey was conducted under the supervision of the Faculty of Medicine (University of Kinshasa) and the Public health school of Kinshasa for statistical analyses.

This was the first survey on allergy in schoolchildren and the selected schools where chosen with the assistance of the ministry of education. Resident students in the last year at the faculty of medicine were included for data collection among schoolchildren and all the parts of the town were concerned. French is the teaching language but we encountered many difficulties due to a poor understanding of some questions which were translated in local languages. Some schools are very far from the centre and access is limited.

Data collected are very helpful and an ongoing study is now conducted by Dr Kapinga to analyze the level of asthma control in adults in Kinshasa. Three workshops have been organized in Kinshasa under the umbrella of pharmaceutical industry (Glaxo Smith Kline) and data from the ISAAC survey were presented.

We are interested in future collaboration at the level of all sub-saharan Africa and a survey on respiratory health will take place in Kinshasa next July
Prof J M Kayembe