Habari — Liz Pavlovich: Weill Bugando University hosts first research symposium

Recently I learned that 60 percent of all babies born in sub-Saharan Africa are not born in a health facility, but rather, in the unsanitary and ill-equipped conditions of the home. This primarily happens in rural villages where women are not able to reach a health facility easily because of the distance or lack of transport and money.

If women bring their baby to the health facility after delivery, more than half of the time it is too late and the child dies. As a result, the odds are stacked against babies who are not born at health facilities. Nearly five times as many of these newborns die within the first couple of days than those babies born at facilities due to hypothermia, sepsis (inflammation of the entire body due to an infection) and other complications, compared to those born in health facilities.

This was just one of the research findings presented by Bugando University faculty and staff at the first research symposium hosted by this eight-year old university in Mwanza, Tanzania. The National Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) provided their brand new facility for the symposium, which accommodated about 300 people anxious to share knowledge about critical health topics such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other serious conditions and diseases prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa.

The importance of conducting research at academic institutions could not be emphasized enough by the keynote speaker, Dr. Kapiga. Research opportunities provide fuel for academic institutions such as Bugando to attract well-qualified faculty, offer exciting extracurricular activities to students, gain additional funding and integrate themselves into the international exchange of knowledge. Not to mention that research findings enable medical practitioners to better assist their patients, drug companies to improve treatments, and governments to better help their populations. With the findings I shared earlier, we better understand how important it is to the survival of newborns for the mother to deliver in a facility with the proper equipment and staff. This could justify the need for governments and organizations to provide education programs in rural communities that encourage women to go to health facilities for antenatal care and delivery or, likewise, encourage the training of greater numbers of health workers who are equipped to do outreach work in rural areas.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the opportunity to do research is very low because of lack of funds and facilities. It was very exciting to see Bugando showcase their hard work last week despite these inherent challenges. The Touch Foundation and other partners of the university will continue to support Bugando’s drive to conduct research. Ultimately, this research will generate knowledge that will help to improve health conditions in  sub-Saharan Africa.

Habari – News From Bugando – is a periodic blog posting by Liz Pavlovich, a Program Officer for the Touch Foundation who is based in Mwanza Tanzania. Since 2004, the Touch Foundation (www.touchfoundation.org) has been working with Tanzanian partners to address the health worker shortage by expanding the Bugando regional medical training college and teaching hospital. Bugando’s University is the second largest of five institutions training medical doctors in the country. It also trains health workers in seven other disciplines – post-graduate MDs, nurses, assistant medical officers, radiographers, pharmacists and laboratory technologists. The school is now training 900 students.