4th Africa MENA Brain Week, Kigali

Olarinde Akinwumi, Founder and Executive Director of Migraine Outreach, spoke during the Patient Advocacy and Community Engagement session alongside Sally Shaaban and Chantal Kanyabutembo — bringing the lived experience of migraine patients in Africa into the conversation. The session focused on reducing migraine stigma and improving care access, two of the most urgent and interconnected challenges facing migraine patients across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Several important points emerged from the session that reflect the reality Migraine Outreach encounters every day in its community and programmes.

Stigma around migraine is often not overt. Unlike some neurological conditions where stigma is visible and documented, migraine stigma is subtle, embedded in everyday interactions, in the dismissive responses of family members, in the language of healthcare professionals who minimise the condition, and in the cultural explanations that redirect patients away from medical care. That subtlety makes it harder to name and harder to address.

Stigma shifts responsibility onto patients for a neurological condition they cannot control. When someone is told their migraine is caused by stress, laziness, or weak character, the message is that they are the problem, not the condition. That internalised message delays help-seeking and deepens suffering.

Improving migraine care access in Sub-Saharan Africa is not primarily about newer treatment options. The newest CGRP therapies and pipeline treatments remain aspirational in the short to mid-term for most African patients. The more urgent and achievable priorities are early recognition of migraine in primary care, clear referral pathways to appropriate specialists, culturally relevant education for both patients and healthcare professionals, and strong patient advocacy that keeps the condition visible in policy and health system conversations.

And perhaps most simply, when stigma exists, care is delayed. When care is delayed, outcomes worsen. That chain of consequence is not abstract. It plays out daily in the lives of the people Migraine Outreach exists to serve.

At the close of the event, Migraine Outreach received recognition from the organisers of the 4th Africa MENA Brain Week — an acknowledgement that reflects the growing importance of patient advocacy and lived experience in shaping more inclusive neurological care across the region.

This recognition is not just for Migraine Outreach. It is for every patient who shared their story, every community member who showed up, and every healthcare professional who took the time to listen differently. Their voices made this recognition possible.