Hearing Loss: 700 Million People to Be Affected by 2050, Morocco Has Chosen to Take Action in Advance

Kigali – While the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 700 million people will suffer from disabling hearing loss by 2050, or one in ten people, and that 430 million people, including 34 million children, already require hearing rehabilitation, Morocco has taken the lead by focusing on anticipation and strengthening systems for the prevention and management of hearing disorders.

Indeed, population ageing, exposure to noise and genetic factors are among the main contributors to the global rise in hearing loss, according to the WHO, which estimates that nearly 2.5 billion people will experience some degree of hearing loss by 2050. In Africa, only one in ten people affected has access to assistance.

Under the impetus of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, May God Assist Him, and thanks to the continued commitment of Her Royal Highness Princess Lalla Asmaa, the Lalla Asmaa Foundation has brought together all stages of the life journey of a deaf person under one continuous system managed by a single institution.

While in other parts of the world screening, diagnosis, implantation, rehabilitation, schooling, university education and employment are handled by separate stakeholders, in Morocco these stages form part of a continuous, free-of-charge pathway extending from screening to cochlear implantation.

Launched in 2023, the neonatal hearing screening program has enabled more than 1,200 people to benefit from free cochlear implants, performed by teams based in five cities across the Kingdom.

Building on this progress, Mohammed V Military Teaching Hospital in Rabat performed Africa’s first robot-assisted cochlear implantation on October 31, 2025.

In the field of research, a study conducted among 88 children who received cochlear implants in Morocco identified a genetic cause in 65.9% of cases, involving 28 genes and paving the way for earlier screening and future therapies.

In higher education, 13 young people who have received support since childhood have now graduated, including two doctorate holders.

This approach continued with the organization in Rabat, in December 2025, of the first African Congress on Pediatric Cochlear Implantation, and the opening on October 15, 2026, in Rabat, of Lalla Asmaa University, the world’s first inclusive university.

This unprecedented model demonstrates that an emerging country can build a public healthcare response that meets international standards of excellence. It is this approach, even more than its results, that Morocco shares in a spirit of active and solidarity-based South-South cooperation.

One example is the “United, We Hear Better” program, which now brings together 23 countries in Africa, the MENA region and Latin America, with nearly 500 patients having benefited from it.

In Rwanda, which has become the 23rd country in the program led by the Lalla Asmaa Foundation, the mission conducted by Moroccan and Rwandan teams has enabled 50 cochlear implant procedures and provided hearing aids to 56 children.

Morocco contributes the elements that distinguish its model: highly skilled teams, a method proven nationwide and the capacity to transfer this expertise. This approach is based on an equal partnership in which each partner takes ownership of the skills shared and puts them into practice according to its own choices. It is under this condition that expertise is transformed into sustainable cooperation.

This medical and humanitarian mission is fully aligned with the African policy pursued by His Majesty King Mohammed VI, based on experience-sharing, co-development and active solidarity among brotherly and friendly countries. This vision makes the expertise acquired by the Kingdom a shared resource for its African partners, made available to them in accordance with their national priorities.

Beyond the medical procedures performed, this mission therefore reflects a model of cooperation specific to the Kingdom. It brings together highly skilled teams from the Kingdom’s major hospitals, who share their nationally established expertise with their Rwandan counterparts in a spirit of peer-to-peer exchange intended to lay the foundations for lasting cooperation.