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UZ
receives U.S. government award to strengthen medical education and
train health care workers
US
Embassy
October
08, 2010
Today, the U.S.
Government announced that the University of Zimbabwe College of
Health Sciences will receive an award from the Medical Education
Partnership Initiative (MEPI). MEPI will support the goals of the
President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) by investing
$130 million to improve African medical education and by training
140,000 African health care workers over five years.
Under this award,
the University
of Zimbabwe College of Health Sciences (UZCHS) is partnering
with the University of Colorado-Denver, Stanford University, the
University of Cape Town, University College London and King's
College London's Institute of Psychiatry to train new health
care workers and to improve the capacity of Zimbabwean health care
institutions to deliver care.
The $15 million
award to UZCHS will cover the Novel Education Clinical Trainees
and Researchers (NECTAR) program and two linked awards program areas:
Cerebrovascular, Heart Failure and Rheumatic Heart Disease Interventions
(CHRIS) Strategy and Improving Mental Health Education and Research
Capacity in Zimbabwe (IMHERZ) over five years.
"The UZCHS
feels privileged to be awarded this prestigious grant from the US
National Institutes of Health/ Fogarty International Center (NIH/FIC)
and PEPFAR. The award has come at a very opportune time when the
UZCHS is revamping academic and research activities," says
Professor James Hakim, Principal Investigator NECTAR, CHRIS and
IMHERZ. He said the grant will enable the premier medical training
institution in Zimbabwe to "implement programs to improve
undergraduate, postgraduate and faculty training in the areas of
clinical management and research capacity, and in general to create
a scholarly and inquisitive environment at the institution."
Ambassador Eric
Goosby, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and the head of PEPFAR, described
the partnership as an important step to "transition PEPFAR-supported
HIV efforts from an emergency response to a more sustainable effort . . . and
to develop the expertise necessary for evidence-based decision-making
on the local level."
Funded through
a joint partnership between the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services and PEPFAR, MEPI grants are awarded directly to African
institutions in a dozen countries, working in partnership with U.S.
medical schools and universities. The initiative will form a network
of 30 regional partners, country health and education ministries,
and more than 20 U.S. collaborators. A complete list of awards and
collaborating partners is available at: www.fic.nih.gov/programs/training_grants/mepi/awards.htm
PEPFAR, through
the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Zimbabwe, currently collaborates
with the University of Zimbabwe on a number of initiatives including
a well-respected two-year Masters Degree program in Public Health
and the HIV/AIDS Quality of Care Initiative.
The United States
is fully committed and engaged with Zimbabwe in the fight against
HIV/AIDS through PEPFAR, including the Government of Zimbabwe's
scale up of antiretroviral treatment. In 2010, the number of people
receiving ARVs with direct PEPFAR funding increased to 59,000, up
from 40,000 in 2009. PEPFAR's 2011 budget for Zimbabwe is
increasing by more than 20% (US$10 million) over this current year
to a total of US$57.5 million. This follows a doubling of the Zimbabwe
PEPFAR budget from 2009 to 2010 (from approximately US$26 million
in 2009 to US$47.5 million in 2010). Much of that increase came
as part of President Obama's pledge of assistance to Zimbabwe.
PEPFAR programs are implemented in Zimbabwe by the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USAID, and the Embassy's
Public Affairs Section (PAS), under the leadership of the Embassy.
The U.S. President's
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is the U.S. Government initiative
to support partner nations around the world in responding to HIV/AIDS.
It was launched in 2003, and is the largest commitment by any nation
to combat a single disease internationally in history. PEPFAR is
the cornerstone of the President's Global Health Initiative,
which supports partner countries in improving health outcomes through
strengthened health systems.
For more information,
please visit http://www.PEPFAR.gov
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
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