Rwanda has been selected to be East Africa’s centre of excellence in e-health and biomedical engineering as well as health vaccines and immunisation logistics.
The decision was taken by health experts and officials from the East African Community (EAC) currently meeting in Kampala, Uganda for the fifth annual EAC Health and Scientific Conference.
The three-day meeting, is running under the theme; ‘Investing in Health through Strengthening Regional Health Systems and Institutions toward the Prevention and Control of Communicable and Non Communicable Diseases’.
Parfait Uwaliraye, the acting Permanent Secretary of Rwanda’s Ministry of Health said that they were given this task because Rwanda is relatively advanced in matters of ICT.
“Our responsibility will be to provide e-health solutions like storage of medical records using high technology,” he said.
According to the plan, Uganda will be the centre of excellence in treating cancer, Kenya will be charged with issues of urology, Tanzania will be charged with cardiac issues, while Burundi will handle nutritional issues.
The health experts have also been working on the formation of a regional health policy that will cover health structuring, harmonisation of national policies, among others.
Sub themes of the meeting include health systems strengthening; integrated approaches for disease prevention, control and management; social determinants of health; and diseases and conditions of public health importance.
Via The New Times
