Sanofi
Country: Nigeria
A. ABOUT SANOFI
Who we are
Sanofi is dedicated to supporting people through their health challenges. We are a global biopharmaceutical company focused on human health. We prevent illness with vaccines, provide innovative treatments to fight pain and ease suffering. We stand by the few who suffer from rare diseases and the millions with long-term chronic conditions.
With more than 100,000 people in 100 countries, Sanofi is transforming scientific innovation into healthcare solutions around the globe. Sanofi, Empowering Life.
What we do
At Sanofi, our passion is to prevent, treat and cure illness and disease throughout life. We are driven to improve the health of communities and to find new solutions for patients by combining breakthrough science with advanced technology.
Inspired by the resilience of our patients and strengthened by our heritage, we are always working for new ways to fight chronic, complex and rare diseases with medicines that offer hope for patients and the future of healthcare.
B. OUR INNOVATIVE HEALTHCARE SOLUTIONS IN NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASES (NCDs)
Owing to rising NCD prevalence in sub-Sahara Africa (including Nigeria and Ghana), we started to focus attention on addressing the fundamental issues that are responsible for increasing disease burden for these diseases.
We therefore evolved innovative solutions to help strengthen the health system and eliminate some of the gaps in healthcare. These solutions are adaptable at the primary level of care and are enabling more people and patients to have access to healthcare with proven results.
Three of our flagship innovative healthcare solutions are the Patient Support Program (PSP), Diabetes and Hypertension Clinics (DHC) and Sanofi Healthcare Summit. These initiatives are targeted at addressing the most prevalent NCDs and other areas of medical care.
C. OUR PROGRAM OUTCOMES
Patient Support Program:
This is a public-private partnership initiative with secondary and tertiary health institutions to support diabetes patients improve their self-care capabilities and to achieve improved treatment outcomes. Support includes patient education, self-testing, counselling and follow-up.
The program has achieved the following in Nigeria.
• Implemented in 11 secondary and tertiary health institutions across 5 states in Nigeria
• >700 patients actively enrolled
• 164 physicians involved in the program
B. Diabetes and Hypertension Clinics (DHC)
This is a public-private partnership initiative with the goal to bring early healthcare closer to people living with diabetes and hypertension in underserved and hard-to-reach communities. DHC involves disease awareness, population screening, HCP training, patient education and strengthening of referral system.
The initiative has achieved the following in Nigeria and Ghana:
• Six DHCs implemented in Nigeria and Ghana since 2018 to cater for 6 underserved communities
• 155 HCPs trained in effective management of diabetes and hypertension
• 17,000 people have utilized the DHCs at Q3 2020
• 4,333 people have received free screening with 189 diagnosed for diabetes and 297 for hypertension
C. Sanofi Healthcare Summit
The COVID-19 Context:
When COVID-19 broke out early 2020, it came suddenly upon an already weak health system in Nigeria. At the early stages with the lockdown in place, the following was the status of the health system:
• Hindered access to care for most patients living NCDs as the already stretched health systems focused more on combating COVID19 with less attention to NCDs.
• Epidemiological data suggested that the elderly and patients with NCDs in co-morbidity with COVID-19 infection were most vulnerable population.
• Difficulty accessing uniform and credible guidance on managing COVID-19 in patients with NCDs as the media, especially social media, was awash with information from many different sources.
• Due to absence of treatment protocol for managing NCDs patients living with a novel virus, the situation posed significant challenge to healthcare practitioners.
Sanofi’s Response
As a responsible and patient-centered organization, whose purpose is to understand and solve healthcare needs, Sanofi decided to focus attention on where there is most need i.e. to strengthen the health system by empowering HCPs through virtual trainings. The goal was to equip HCPs to effectively manage patients with NCDs in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The virtual training was tagged Sanofi Healthcare Summit with the theme “Evolving Patient Care in a Pandemic”. The summit brought together policy makers, regulators, key opinion leaders and healthcare practitioners with various medical expertise across Africa and the diaspora to learn and share clinical experience. The training was broad in scope and covered COVID-19 policy, epidemiology, NCD management, pharmaceutical care and disease management protocols.
Summit’s Outcome
• 3,673 HCPs trained across 17 countries
• HCP empowered in wide areas of expertise (including diabetes, hypertension, cancer, venous thrombo-embolism, immunization, pediatrics, community pharmacy practice)
• HCP feedbacks indicated summit was high value
