Merck kicks off the adopting of e–learning solutions to build healthcare capacity in Africa

Dr Stefan Oschmann and Prof Sidat Mohsin dean of mediacl school at Eduardo Mondelane University Mozambique

One of the world’s oldest pharmaceutical and chemical company, Merck has started its second year of its five year project to provide European Accredited Clinical Diabetes Management course for medical and pharmacy students in African Universities by introducing E-Learning.

The German pharmaceutical and chemical giant is implementing a well structured and coherent Corporate Social Responsibility strategy that features a medical education Africa tour to improve diabetes healthcare in Africa.

At the beginning of September 2014, Merck Capacity Advancement Program (CAP) will kick off its second year of the Clinical Diabetes Management Program to medical and pharmacy students in University of Nairobi.

Merck will provide the same course to medical students of Makerere University, Uganda and University of Namibia.

At the end of September 2014, Merck CAP will provide the same course addressing chronic diseases management focusing on Diabetes and hypertension. The course will be offered in Portuguese by International and local professors to medical students at University Eduardo Mondlane, Mozambique and Katyavala Bwila University, Angola.

In November 2014, Merck will head to Tanzania where they will provide the clinical diabetes management course to medical students of Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Science before extending the same to University of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana.

Every healthcare provider in those countries and the rest of Africa will have free access to all the lectures on a dedicated website www.managediabetesonline.org  and will be able to undergo an assessment to obtain CME hours on line.

Dr Stefan Oschmann, Merck Pharma CEO emphasized “ Merck is supporting E- Health which can definitely contribute to bringing healthcare to unserved or underserved populations; increasing the effectiveness and reducing the costs of healthcare delivery; improving the effectiveness of public health programmes and research; preventing illness and managing and treating chronic diseases.”