Monthly Noma Webinars

THE NOMA SITUATION IN THE DRC: STRATEGY AND STRUCTURING OF THE PROGRAMMATIC RESPONSE

Dr. Alexandre Kabuya Wa Muele is a dentist and a specialist in dental public health from the University of Kinshasa, currently serving as the Director of the National Oral Health Program.

He has been practicing dentistry since 2012, initially as the coordinator of the school-based preventive dentistry project in Kinshasa with the NGO REMEDE DENTAIRE. He subsequently worked in various public and private healthcare facilities before being appointed as an assistant to the National Oral Health Program in 2016; he has led the program since 2018.
In 2017, he became involved in the fight against Noma with the support of the WHO. This collaboration facilitated the development of the 2019–2022 Strategic Plan to Combat Noma, which enabled the training of frontline workers in case detection, primary care, and referral across multiple health zones, as well as the integration of eight key Noma monitoring indicators into the DHIS 2 system in 2023.

We are supporting the NGO KasNoma in training community stakeholders—such as traditional healers and religious leaders—to identify and refer Noma cases. In July 2026, we trained around thirty traditional healers in Kinshasa and conducted several awareness-raising campaigns on Noma in the capital’s churches, schools, and markets. We have also recently developed audiovisual awareness materials in local languages to improve understanding of Noma, in collaboration with KasNoma.

My personal commitment to fighting this disease dates back to 2017, during our school-based awareness campaigns. We identified a Stage III Noma case and informed the parents of the urgent need for medical treatment; however, due to their preconceived beliefs, the child was taken to a church for prayers instead, and we were left helpless as the child passed away two weeks later. Since then, we have resolved to wage a more vigorous battle against community ignorance.