Former Spanish leader praises Manhiça Health Research Centre

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Former Spanish leader praises Manhiça Health Research Centre

8:44 CAT | 20 Nov 2017

File photo / Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero

Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero on Monday praised the Manhiça Health Research Centre (CISM), in southern Mozambique, as “a centre of hope, which saves lives”.

Zapatero is one of the keynote speakers at “Mozefo 2017”, a discussion forum running from Wednesday to Friday in Maputo, organised by the Soico media company, owners of the STV television station and the independent daily “O Pais”.

CISM has an international reputation for high quality medical research particularly in the fight against malaria. It is also the flagship for Spanish cooperation with Mozambique, dating back to bilateral agreements signed in 1995. Spanish assistance for the centre has been running at about a million US dollars a year.

After a tour of the premises, and of the adjacent Manhica district hospital, Zapatero declared that the Spanish aid should continue, since “nothing is more important than health”.

“Research, social inclusion and education are pillars of the nation”, declared Zapatero as he concluded his visit. Scientific research was key to reducing the burden of illness, and there would be “no progress without social inclusion”.

The CISM is now managed by the Manhica Foundation which has the status of a private body, although it was set up in 2008 by the Mozambican and Spanish governments. This legal structure, CISM argues, will ensure its long term sustainability.

The key area for CISM’s research has been malaria, notably in developing a candidate vaccine (known as RTS,S) against the malaria parasite. The Centre’s director, Eusebio Macete, told the reporters that, after 12 years of research, the candidate vaccine has received the go-ahead for trials that will be held in Malawi, Kenya and Uganda.

Macete said the World Health Organisation (WHO) is now moving away from simply controlling malaria to a strategy of eliminating the disease. “We are taking one area and seeing if we can completely eradicate malaria from it”, he said.

The area chosen in Mozambique is Magude district, which borders on Manica, and is home to about 50,000 people.

Macete said the elimination programme is now in its second year, and has succeeded in reducing the incidence of malaria in Magude by 70 per cent.

He pointed out that success for malaria elimination programmes in neighbouring countries such as Swaziland and South Africa, depends on reducing the scale of the disease in southern Mozambique.

Source: AIM