It aims at contributing to the development of relevant and highly skilled workforce in biomedical sciences to meet East African Community’s immediate labour market needs.
Phase One of the project, which is set to be located at a new spacious campus in Mloganzila, 25 kilometres from the Dar es Salaam city centre, will cost 10.2 million US dollars, out of which 9.4 million dollars will be a soft loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) while the balance of 755,000 US dollars will be provided by the government of Tanzania.
Speaking during the launching ceremony held in Dar es Salaam, MUHAS Vice-Chancellor, Prof Ephata Kaaya, said the centre will perform the core functions of the University, namely research, training and service provision in addition to offering training in all aspects of primary, secondary and tertiary prevention of cardiovascular services.“The contribution of MUHAS in development of skilled workforce in health sciences in the country is widely recognised,’’ he said. With the establishment of this centre, MUHAS will be taking one more step towards achieving its mission of providing quality training, research and service provision for attainment of equitable socio-economic development for the Tanzanian community and beyond.
On behalf of the Minister for Education and Vocational Training, Dr Shukuru Kawambwa, the Director of Higher Education in the ministry, Prof Sylvia Temu, said the creation of the centre was in line with a number of national plans which have been put forth to accelerate development.
This includes Tanzania’s five years Development plan (2011-2016) which stresses on human capital and skills development with emphasis on science, technology and innovation.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) projects that deaths due to non-communicable diseases, particularly cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases, will increase by 17 per cent over the next ten years globally, starting 2008. The report further projects that the greatest increase will be witnessed in Africa (27 per cent) and eastern Mediterranean regions (25 per cent).
“Establishing this centre is very timely since by preventing occurrences of cardiovascular diseases and locally managing and rehabilitation of the affected will cut down the cost on health financing in terms of disease burden and especially due to referrals abroad,” said Prof Temu. He noted that the move would also cut down training costs of teaching staff in universities of health sciences, most of which is currently done abroad.
Mr Demissie Dejene, representing Dr Tonia Kandiero, Tanzania’s AfDB Resident Representative, said the project’s financing was in line with the bank’s education model that is centred in nurturing skilled human resources to cover vast fields, including science and technology. “This important project is well designed to curb the problem that has been looming around the continent of mismatched human resource.
We are looking forward to implementing this important project for the benefit of the people of Tanzania and beyond,” he observed. The centre is part of a drive by the Arusha-based East African Community, to establish five centres of excellence in skills development and tertiary education in biomedical science projects that aims at contributing to development of relevant and highly skilled workforce in biomedical sciences to meet East African Community’s immediate labour market needs.
In addition to the CoECS centre of excellence, Burundi will host a nutrition centre of excellence, Kenya; a centre of Neurology and Urology, Uganda (Oncology Centre) while Rwanda will be host to Biomedical Engineering and e-Health centre.
/Daily News.
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