Free Health Screening in Nigeria: 10 Tests You Can Do Now
Most chronic disease in Nigeria is found late. Not because the conditions are hard to detect, but because the first contact with the health system usually costs money, takes a day, and happens only once something already hurts. Hypertension, diabetes, sleep apnoea and depression all announce themselves quietly or not at all, so the visit gets postponed until it cannot be.
HubPharm has published ten free health screening in Nigeria tools that remove the first barrier entirely. Each one runs in your browser, takes about two minutes, costs nothing and stores nothing. This guide explains what each tool checks, which validated instrument sits behind it, and what a result does and does not mean.
Why free health screening in Nigeria matters more than it sounds
The World Health Organization counted 43 million deaths from noncommunicable diseases in 2021, about 75 percent of all non-pandemic deaths worldwide. Roughly 18 million of those people died before the age of 70, and 82 percent of those premature deaths happened in low and middle income countries. In Nigeria, WHO attributes about 29 percent of all deaths to noncommunicable disease.
Look at hypertension for the shape of the problem. About 38 percent of Nigerian adults have it, roughly 60 percent know, a third are on treatment, and only 12.4 percent have it under control. The losses happen at every step, and the first one is simply never being checked.
A screening tool does not fix that cascade. What it does is make the first step free, private and immediate, so that the decision to see someone is based on a real signal rather than on fear or on nothing at all.
HubPharm co-founder and chief executive Tope Kareem put the intention plainly at the launch. “We built these tools to remove cost and access as excuses for early detection.” Catching risk early is far cheaper than the admission that follows when nobody does.
The 10 tools that make free health screening in Nigeria possible
| Tool | What it checks | Instrument behind it | Time |
| Heart Risk Estimator | 10 year cardiovascular risk | ASCVD and Framingham models | 2 to 3 min |
| Diabetes Risk Test | 10 year risk of type 2 diabetes | FINDRISC | 2 to 3 min |
| Sleep Apnea Screener | Risk of obstructive sleep apnoea | STOP-Bang | 2 min |
| Depression Screener | Severity of depressive symptoms | PHQ-9 | 2 min |
| Anxiety Screener | Severity of generalised anxiety symptoms | GAD-7 | 2 min |
| ADHD Screener | Core adult ADHD symptoms | WHO ASRS | 2 to 3 min |
| PrEP Eligibility Checker | Whether PrEP is worth discussing | CDC 2021 PrEP indicators | 2 min |
| Fertility Risk Screening | Fertility risk factors, separately for women and men | WHO definitions, FertiSTAT informed | 2 to 3 min |
| Cancer Emergency Screening | Urgent warning signs during chemotherapy | Oncology red flag criteria | 1 min |
| HMO ROI Calculator | Savings available from better adherence | HubPharm adherence modelling | 2 min |
The suite covers seven areas of health: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, mental health, fertility, HIV prevention, sleep disorders and cancer-related emergencies. Nine of the ten tools are patient facing. Each opens in a browser, needs no account, and is the reason free health screening in Nigeria no longer requires a clinic visit to begin.
Heart and metabolic risk
The Heart Risk Estimator asks eight questions covering age, sex, cholesterol, blood pressure, smoking and diabetes status, then returns a ten year cardiovascular risk using the ASCVD and Framingham models. The Diabetes Risk Test uses FINDRISC, the Finnish instrument, across nine questions on age, body size, waist, activity, diet, blood pressure history and family history.
Both are risk estimates rather than diagnoses. A high result means go and get a blood test, not that you have the disease.
Mental health and attention
Three tools sit here. The Depression Screener runs the PHQ-9, the Anxiety Screener runs the GAD-7, and the ADHD Screener runs the World Health Organization’s Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale. These are the same instruments used in clinics internationally, scored the same way.
That matters in Nigeria, where mental health assessment is scarce outside a handful of centres and where the alternative is usually no assessment at all.
Sleep
The Sleep Apnea Screener uses STOP-Bang, eight questions on snoring, daytime tiredness, witnessed pauses in breathing, blood pressure, body size, age, neck circumference and sex. Obstructive sleep apnoea is badly underdiagnosed here, and it is a genuine driver of resistant hypertension, so a high score is worth acting on.
Sexual and reproductive health
The PrEP Eligibility Checker works from the CDC’s 2021 clinical practice guidance, cross-checked against 2025 Canadian guidance, and tells you whether PrEP is worth raising with a provider. It is deliberately private, and it makes clear that starting PrEP always requires a confirmed negative HIV test first.
The Fertility Risk Screening runs ten questions, tailored separately for women and men, drawing on WHO definitions of infertility and published risk factors. HubPharm is explicit that this one is an educational scoring design rather than a validated diagnostic test, which is the correct disclosure to make.
Cancer care safety
The Cancer Emergency Screening tool is the one that can save a life this week rather than this decade. It takes a minute and sorts symptoms during chemotherapy into three tiers: go to hospital now, contact your oncology team today, or monitor at home. A fever of 38.3 degrees, or 38.0 sustained for more than an hour, is always treated as an emergency, because neutropenic sepsis kills quickly and is survivable when caught early.
For HMOs and employers
The tenth tool is not for patients. The HMO ROI Calculator lets a health plan enter its enrollee numbers and average annual claims cost, then estimates the savings available from closing medication adherence gaps. Poor adherence drives avoidable admissions, and those admissions land on the payer.
What separates these from an ordinary online quiz
Anyone can build a health quiz. Free health screening in Nigeria is worth nothing if the scoring behind it was invented on a whim, so the difference here is threefold and worth understanding before you trust any result.
The instruments are published and validated. PHQ-9, GAD-7, ASRS, Framingham, FINDRISC and STOP-Bang all have peer-reviewed literature behind them and are used in clinical practice. They were not invented for a website.
Nothing is stored. Scoring happens in your browser. HubPharm receives no answers unless you choose to make contact afterwards. For the PrEP and mental health tools in particular, that privacy is the reason people complete them honestly.
A pharmacist is on the other side. A result that says “see someone” is only useful if seeing someone is possible. Every tool routes into Afiya, HubPharm’s WhatsApp health companion, or into a consultation with the care team, a referral, or medicine delivery.
As HubPharm founder and president Sesan Kareem put it at the launch: “Early detection only matters if it leads somewhere. Every tool here connects to a system that can act on the result, a pharmacist, a doctor, or a delivery to your door.”
A screener with no route into care is a statistic generator, not a health intervention. Behind these tools sits a coordinated care team of pharmacists, doctors, nurses and lifestyle coaches, with a direct WhatsApp route for anyone whose result comes back elevated.
What free health screening in Nigeria cannot do
Being straight about the limits is what makes the tools worth using.
None of them diagnoses anything. A screening instrument is designed to be over-inclusive, so it will flag people who turn out to be fine. That is the intended behaviour, not a fault.
None of them replaces a measurement. The Heart Risk Estimator needs your actual cholesterol and blood pressure numbers to be worth anything, so a guessed input produces a meaningless output. Sleep apnoea needs a sleep study to confirm. Diabetes needs a blood test.
And a low score is not a clean bill of health. If you have symptoms, the symptoms win, whatever the tool said.
How to act on the result you get
Free health screening in Nigeria only pays off in what you do next. Screen shot the result or write down the score, then do one of three things.
If the tool says emergency, particularly on the cancer tool, go to a hospital now and do not wait for anything else.
If it flags elevated risk, book the confirmatory test rather than repeating the screener. That means a fasting glucose or HbA1c for diabetes, a lipid profile and a fortnight of blood pressure readings for heart risk, a sleep study for apnoea, and a clinician for the mental health tools.
If it comes back low and you feel well, note the date and repeat it in a year. Risk changes, and a single screening in 2026 tells you nothing about 2029.
Common questions
Are these tools really free?
Yes. There is no fee, no account and no card. The tools are part of HubPharm’s public health work rather than a product.
Is my data safe?
Scoring runs in your browser and nothing is stored or shared unless you contact HubPharm afterwards. That applies to every tool, including the PrEP and mental health screeners.
Can a screening result get me a prescription?
No. A screener is not a diagnosis and never a prescription. For PrEP specifically, a confirmed negative HIV test is required before starting, whatever the checker says.
How often should I repeat a screening?
Annually for the risk estimators if your result was low, and sooner if something changes such as a new diagnosis, weight gain or a family event. Free health screening in Nigeria costs you nothing but two minutes, so there is no reason to stretch it further than a year.
Which tool should I start with?
If you are over 40 or have a family history, start with the Heart Risk Estimator and the Diabetes Risk Test. If you snore heavily and wake tired, add the Sleep Apnea Screener. If mood or worry has been affecting your days for two weeks or more, use the PHQ-9 or GAD-7.
Do I still need a physical check-up?
Yes. These tools decide whether and how urgently to go. They do not replace going. Free health screening in Nigeria works as a triage layer in front of care, not as a substitute for it.
Can I use them for my staff or my members?
Yes, and several employers already share them. HMOs and self-insured employers should also look at the ROI calculator, which quantifies what adherence gaps are costing them.
Free health screening in Nigeria is the cheapest thing we can give away
Early detection is the highest-return intervention in chronic disease, and the barrier here has rarely been clinical knowledge. It has been the cost and friction of the first step.
That is why these ten tools exist and why they are free. At HubPharm Africa our work is the part that comes after the result: sourcing verified medicines, delivering them across Nigeria, coordinating refills so treatment never lapses, and putting a pharmacist on the phone when something changes. Across our programmes we have seen a 42 percent improvement in medication adherence and 95 percent patient satisfaction, with more than 10,200 patients served and over 400,000 medicine packs delivered across 32 Nigerian states and 12 countries.
Free health screening in Nigeria will not close the treatment gap on its own, but it moves the first step from a day and a fee to two minutes and nothing. Take two minutes. Run the screener that applies to you. Then talk to us about what comes next.
[Talk to a HubPharm pharmacist →]
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Written by Fawzi Rufai, Medically reviewed by Pharm. Sesan Kareem, B.Pharm, MPA, MBA.
These tools are screening aids, not diagnoses. They do not replace assessment by your own doctor or pharmacist, and no result should be used to start, stop or change any medication.
References
- World Health Organization, Noncommunicable diseases fact sheet, 2021 data.
- Prevalence, Awareness, Treatment and Control of Hypertension in Nigeria: Data from a Nationwide Survey 2017. Global Heart.
- Kroenke K, Spitzer RL, Williams JBW. The PHQ-9: validity of a brief depression severity measure. Journal of General Internal Medicine.
- Spitzer RL et al. A brief measure for assessing generalized anxiety disorder: the GAD-7. Archives of Internal Medicine.
- Wilson PWF et al. Prediction of coronary heart disease using risk factor categories. Circulation, 1998.
- Lindström J, Tuomilehto J. The diabetes risk score. Diabetes Care, 2003.
- Chung F et al. STOP-Bang questionnaire for obstructive sleep apnea.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Preexposure Prophylaxis for the Prevention of HIV Infection, 2021 update.
- Independent Nigeria. HubPharm Unveils 10 Free Screeners To Catch Chronic Diseases Early, Reduce Premature Deaths. https://independent.ng/hubpharm-unveils-10-free-screeners-to-catch-chronic-diseases-early-reduce-premature-deaths/
- Obinna D. Firm launches free tools for early detection of chronic diseases. The Sun, 3 September 2026. https://thesun.ng/firm-launches-free-tools-for-early-detection-of-chronic-diseases/
- Okpalakunne N. 10 free digital tools launched for early disease screening. BusinessDay, 6 September 2026. https://businessday.ng/life/article/10-free-digital-tools-launched-for-early-disease-screening/