Background
Nigeria is rapidly undergoing epidemiological transition resulting in a double burden of infectious and chronic diseases. Efforts have been concentrated on addressing infectious diseases, neglecting chronic diseases. However, the benefit of targeted chronic disease investigation cannot be overemphasized.
Methods
We conducted a literature search to identify ongoing chronic disease registry efforts in Nigeria. We then contacted the researchers and obtained additional information on the projects including information on the process for data management and number of contributing institutions.
Results
We found several single institutional efforts but were able to identify five efforts that were cross institutional and promising. These were the Cancer, Paediatric Cardiology, Adult Cardiology, Nephrology and Cardiac Surgery registries. Of the five, the cancer registry was well established with an electronic system and several publications from this registry. Next was the cardiac surgery registry with an online repository. Others did not have proper electronic archives and were often made of single institution efforts.
Conclusions
To address the data management need, we built a bank of chronic disease registries https://disreg.org/ and established partnerships with research teams. The bank is designed with multiple levels of access control. Additional registries can be plugged into the bank with ease. It provides a warehouse for chronic disease researchers to archive their data in Nigeria and potentially beyond.
Key messages
The bank will enrich the data available for investigating risk factors of chronic diseases pertinent in our environment.
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