African Region Activities UpdateThe following activities form part of the strategy of the African Federation for Technology in Healthcare (AFTH) in promoting healthcare technology interventions and their management in the African region: Vision 2020The 2nd AFTH International Meeting on Health Care Technology in Africa 'Vision 2020' will be held in Harare, Zimbabwe in April 1998 and will comprise a number of events targeted at political leaders and healthcare technology planners and practitioners in the region. Events will include: the 2nd General Assembly of the AFTH; a seminar on quality assurance/tech-nology assessment; a conference on health care technology in the African region; and a workshop on health care technology management in developing countries. The meeting is being organised in collaboration with the WHO and the GTZ. For further information please contact Peter Heimann at the AFTH Secretariat (details below). AFTH publicationThe AFTH Secretariat has established the infrastructure for the publication and distribution of Healthcare Technology Africa, the official publication of the AFTH. While focusing on issues relating to healthcare technology interventions in Africa, the AFTH will welcome submissions from other developing regions in particular. Two issues per year are planned initially. For further information please contact the Editor, Mladen Poluta, c/o AFTH Secretariat (details below) The MRC/WHO Collaborating Centre for Essential Technologies in Health is based at the South African Medical Research Council. The Collaborating Centre is engaged in the following activities: The compilation, in collaboration with the WHO (AFRO and HQ) and the AFTH, of a healthcare technology resource database for the Africa Region. The database will include listings of healthcare technology experts, policy-/decision-makers and practitioners, training centres and literature and other documented material specific to developing countries. The 1997 update, in collaboration with the AFTH, of the Clinical Engineering Directory of the IFMBE's Clinical Engineering Division. For those wishing to be included in the updated directory, the questionnaire is available in both electronic and paper forms from the AFTH Secretariat (details below). The development, in collaboration with the WHO (AFRO and HQ) and the AFTH, of a methodology for the establishment of an Essential Equipment List (EEL) for the district level based on the essential procedures at that level. Future work will include the development of EEL's for the provincial (secondary) and tertiary levels. The project is being supported by national governments in the African region. Other newsA National Steering Committee on Clinical Engineering has been established in South Africa to define appropriate education and training programmes for clinical engineering practitioners at all levels of the healthcare system. The Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cape Town plans to launch in 1998 a postgraduate programme in Healthcare Technology Management (HTM) for Developing Countries. The programme will be based on distance-learning principles and will provide many potential students, and those in the sub-saharan region in particular, with affordable access to postgraduate programmes in the area of HTM that are responsive to present and anticipated needs of the Region. Mladen Poluta IFMBE Liaison to the African Region AFTH Secretariat: tel: +27 21 938 0413; fax: +27 21 938 0385; email: afth@eagle.mrc.ac.za | ||