A $7.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will help address the shortage of healthcare workers in Tanzania and support the continued strategic collaboration between UCSF Global Health Sciences and the Muhimbili University of Health Allied Sciences (MUHAS) in Tanzania. UCSF Professor Sarah Macfarlane and MUHAS Professor Ephata Kaaya will lead the project.

Solving sub-Saharan Africa's healthcare worker shortage has long been a priority for governments, universities and international organizations. This project harnesses the resources of two major universities to approach the problem and aims to develop an institutional partnership model that can be replicated in other low-resource settings.

Faculty from the UCSF schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy and dentistry will work with their MUHAS counterparts, as well as the MUHAS School of Public Health, to share curricula and educational technologies, and develop collaborative research programs.

"There is remarkable institutional symmetry in that both are public health sciences institutions that train physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists and allied health workers. In addition, the two universities have worked together for four years and have achieved a high level of professional trust and respect," said Haile Debas, MD, executive director of UCSF Global Health Sciences.


Excerpted from a UCSF news release.