*Title: "Surgery and Global Public Health: The Malawi Surgical Initiative"*
*Speaker: *Anthony G. Charles, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of
Surgery, UNC School of Medicine
*Date:* Wednesday, November 18th , 2009
*Time:* 3:00pm – 4:30pm
*Place*: 133 Rosenau Auditorium
*Background on UNC Project - Malawi*
More than twenty years ago, faculty from the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill were invited by the Malawian government to help
the country develop STI treatment protocols. UNC has been working in
Malawi ever since.
In 1999 UNC partnered with the Malawi Ministry of Health to establish
the UNC Project-Malawi <http://www.id.unc.edu/malawi>, a research, care
and training facility in the capital city of Lilongwe.
Like much of sub-Saharan Africa, Malawi faces significant
healthcare-related challenges. Malawi has only 2 physicians per 100,000
people, and the average life expectancy is 39 years. There is a high
burden of HIV, malaria, TB and other infectious diseases straining the
country’s limited healthcare infrastructure.
*Mission in Malawi*
The mission of UNC Project-Malawi is to identify innovative, culturally
acceptable, and relatively inexpensive methods of reducing the risk of
HIV/STI and infectious disease transmission through research; strengthen
the local research capacity through training and technology transfers;
and improve patient care for the people of Malawi.
For more information on UNC Project – Malawi:
http://www.med.unc.edu/wrkunits/2depts/medicine/id/malawi/
For more information on Dr. Charles:
http://www.med.unc.edu/trauma/faculty/charlesag
For more information on UNC IPRC:
http://www.iprc.unc.edu/
