More research needed in child health, HIV – experts

The Minister of Health, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, has highlighted the need to build research capacity to address the health disparities affecting children, adolescents and their families. Dr Aceng made the remarks at the 2023 Forum on Child and Adolescent Global Health Research and Capacity Building.

“As a region, we face multiple health challenges affecting children, adolescents and their families, and these include existing endemic diseases, such as, HIV, tuberculosis and malaria; emerging and reemerging infectious diseases, such as Ebola, and non-communicable diseases. It is, therefore, critical to train the next generation of researchers who are well versed with working with multi-disciplinary teams to optimise health outcomes for populations,” Dr Aceng said, during the forum which attracted over 40 researchers and research trainees representing universities from across the globe.

According to her, the government greatly values evidence-based research as it formulates policies and programs to improve the wellbeing of children and communities.

“A 2017 Lancet Report found that only 35 percent of scientific publications addressing research interventions in low middle income countries include authors who work in low middle income settings. Secondly, few African scholars on the continent are able to find funding for their research programmes, primarily due to lack of infrastructure to develop research projects, and most research interventions for sub-Saharan Africa are still guided by theoretical models originated in the global north, which lack contextual relevance,” Dr Aceng says.

According to Prof Fred Ssewamala, an Associate Dean for Transdisciplinary Research at Washington University in St Louis, and the founder of the International Centre for Child Health and Development (ICHAD), children and adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa, and in Uganda in particular face multiple obstacles which prohibit their healthy development and adherence to HIV treatment.

By GILLIAN NANTUME | MONITOR | UGANDA
https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/more-research-needed-in-child-health-hiv-experts–4280910