Echocardiography: a tool to foster research into neglected cardiovascular diseases in Africa

Abstract

Research in wealthy countries has been co-funded by the government and the industry, allowing spectacu- lar discoveries in molecular biology, chemistry and engineering, which are then taken to the pharmaceu- tical industry and applied to the development of drugs and devices for a wide range of diseases, leading to a decrease in mortality in developed countries. Unfor- tunately, most benefits of these gains for human kind are not available in most parts of Africa, a continent with low life expectancy associated with an extre- mely high burden of diseases that have been controlled in other parts of the world.