The UPMB – Healthy Heart Africa Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) partnership is a two-year project, with a total budget of USD 500,000 funded by AstraZeneca, AZ. The project start date was 1^st July 2020 and ended 30^th June 2022. The project focused on capacity building for health workers and village health teams (VHTs) on prevention, screening, diagnosis and management for hypertension and COPD/ Asthma, community sensitization, healthy lifestyles and the need for early detection for hypertension and COPD/ Asthma; in addition to timely linkages to care as well as increased availability and access to affordable and quality medicines for hypertension and COPD/ Asthma.

The overall project goal was to contribute to the prevention and control of hypertension and COPD/ Asthma and decreasing the burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Uganda by 2022. Program Objectives include;

• To empower health workers and VHTs with the right knowledge and tools to conduct comprehensive screening for hypertension and COPD/ Asthma at facility and in the community households by June 2022.
• To increase awareness and education on healthy lifestyles and prevention of CVD risk factors by June 2022
• To increase availability and variety of affordable quality medicine for hypertension and COPD/ Asthma by June 2022
• To decongest hospitals and drive care for hypertension and COPD/ Asthma to lower levels of care in the health system through establishment of comprehensive patient referral pathways using data by June 2022.

This project contributes to the Ministry of Health efforts to reduce premature mortality arising from Non-Communicable Diseases by 25% by 2025. The project is being implemented in 35 health facilities including 4 public facilities (3 regional hospitals and 1 district hospital), while the rest are UPMB Member Health Facilities (6 hospitals, 1 HC IV, 14 HC III and 9 HC II) in Mbarara, Mityana, Kampala and Jinja regions; the representation of the different levels of service delivery was purposed to allow effective referral pathways for hypertension and COPD/ Asthma cases.