Sponsors: Funds Sought to Help Train Malagasy Health Professionals in London
By Richard Cowper in Antananarivo
Madagascar and the world famous London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine are calling on companies, individuals or organisations to assist with funds for a scholarship programme to train Malagasy public health specialists who will help to cut Madagascar’s high death toll from malaria, tuberculosis and simply giving birth.
According to recent statistics as many as 5,000 children under the age of five die of malaria in Madagascar every year and the country has one of the world’s highest death rates for mothers during childbirth due to lack of pre-natal care, facilities and organisation. As many as 467 Malagasy mothers die in child birth for every 100,000 live births – a statistic not dissimilar to that of Victorian London.
As Europe’s leading research and postgraduate teaching institute in tropical medicine and part of the University of London , the London School has spent many decades establishing close links with the developing world and creating specialist courses to help highly talented and motivated individuals from the third world improve their countries’ health systems and tackle the major diseases which lead to poor health and shorter life expectancy.
The London Scholarships for Health in Madagascar Committee (LUSH), is seeking finance to train outstanding Malagasy health professionals in public health and tropical medicine in London over the next ten years, to enable them to return to help transform their country’s health systems. The London School already has successful health and research programmes in India and several African countries, and is looking to provide the long term help in Madagascar that is sometimes ignored in international aid funding.
In addition to training top health professionals, the London School has carried out breakthrough research on malaria, TB, AIDS and many other tropical diseases and is currently working on an anti-malaria vaccine. Richard Cowper, Adviser to the International Board of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in Madagascar for six months to help promote closer links between the London School and Madagascarl, says: “This high powered scholarship programme which aims to give the best public health education in the world to Madagascar’s brightest and best, will offer a golden public relations opportunity to any company or organisation which helps support it. Every Malagasy would like to buy a product or service from a company which is high minded enough to help extend and improve the lives of the country’s citizens.”
Further information about the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, its research, courses and major world achievements can be found at www.lshtm.ac.uk
