It has been decided to conduct the vaccination against the Ebola disease for health workers.
This has been announced by the Government through the Ministry of Health, that the vaccination will target front line workers in the fight against Ebola.

As the widespread occurance continues to claim more lives in neighbouring DRC.
As neighbour to the DRC, Uganda is on high risk alert due to the high risk of the Ebola threat.

In August 2018, Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak was confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
It is currently affecting north-eastern province of DRC that border Uganda, Rwanda and south Sudan.

As of 1st November 2018, the DRC had registered a total of 285 increasing cases, 250 confirmed cases and total of 180 deaths.
Currently about 41 suspect cases are under investigation.

The two provinces that are affected are North Kivu – Mabalako; Butembo; Ocha; Musienene; Beni and Bingo and Ituri- Mambasa, Mandina, Tchomia.

The affected areas in the DRC are about 100km from the Uganda’s border districts of Kabaraole, Bunyangabo, Kasese, Bundibugyo, Hoima, Arua and Ntoroko.

The Search for active case continues in all communities, health facilities and in formal and informal border crossing in all districts, mostly in the high risk ones.

In order to prevent the spread of this disease, the trainings on case management have been conducted in 7 districts of Kabaraole, Bunyangabo, Kasese, Bundibugyo, ntoroko, wakiso and Kampala.

Meanwhile, the Ministry has again repeated that there is no confirmed case of Ebola registered in Uganda yet.
But this vaccination programme will help the front line workers to get the better services and treatment against the ebola disease.

The Minister for Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, Ms Ummy Mwalimu, pointed to the fact that JKCI had made significant contribution by reducing referrals of heart patients by 85 per cent.

TANZANIA is gearing to become a hub of high-tech cardiovascular treatment in East Africa and Sub- Saharan Africa through extension of the Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute (JKCI) at Mloganzila, which is envisioned to be a centre of excellence in the region.

Cardiovascular complications are among non-communicable diseases that are on the rise in Tanzania and elsewhere in the region and hence the need to expand JKCI to enable it to cater for treatment of heart diseases.

Prof Janabi stated that “All the drawings and proposal of the new hospital have been completed and submitted to the government of China and We are highly positive that they (Chinese) will support us in this project just as they did for the current facility”.
Prof Janabi made the revelation at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of China-Tanzania Cooperation in the health sector, which was held at the Embassy of China in Dar es Salaam where the Minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, Dr Augustine Mahiga, was the chief guest.

Dr Mahiga informed the audience that Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa had requested the President of China, Mr Xi Jinping, to support the expansion of JKCI during the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) held in September, this year.

“Apart from the extension of the cardiac institute, we also requested our Chinese friends to enable us to improve our capability in manufacturing of medicines, medical equipment and training of personnel,” Dr Mahiga, who accompanied the PM at FOCAC, stated.

The planned new facility at Mloganzila, which will include a special wing for children, will have a capacity of between 280 and 350 beds, up from the current 128 beds at the current JKCI building, which is located within the Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH).
Apart from treating local patients, the current facility at Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) extends services to patients from neighbouring countries such as Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda as well as Zambia, Malawi and the Comoros, among others.

Speaking earlier, the Ambassador of China to Tanzania, Ms Wang Ke, disclosed that over 2,000 medical practitioners have been dispatched from China, particularly in Shandong Province, to hospitals in Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar.

During the commemoration, officials from the two countries also launched a programme called “Chinese Doctors’ Medical Visits Benefiting Tanzania,” in which medical teams will be dispatched twice every year to provide free medical services in rural areas.

The Envoy pledged support from her government to ensure that extension of JKCI is implemented. The Chinese government provided 16.6bn/- for JKCI, while the government of Tanzania provided funds amounting to 10bn/-.

Dr Mahiga expressed appreciation to China for continued support.

Tanzanian businesswoman Lilian Makoi has introduced an affordable mobile healthcare solution christened Jamii Africa in Tanzania. Although she has co-founded a number of startups, Jamii Africa happens to be her biggest and most positive business venture.

According to Lilian Makoi, she started Jamii Africa after losing someone in her family from a treatable medical emergency. The main reason for the loss, she said was their inability to pay for medical services. And this according to her was a wake-up call.

She was therefore ignited to do a research concerning the incident, after which she found out that, in-access and in-affordability to medical services was a problem facing 70 percent of the Tanzania population.

Per the research, she decided to speak with various insurers to understand why they were not addressing such an issue. But unfortunately majority attributed their inability to “high insurance administration costs.”

“Through the experience I had gained in my career it was easy to craft out how the mobile phone can be used to do most, if not all, of the administrative activities of the insurer, from on-boarding, premium collection, benefit ledger management, claims processing and payout,” she said.
She then built the platform and reached out to Vodacom as a product partner. With Jamii, users easily call Vodacom’s M-Pesa USSD menu and select a policy fit for their family size and what they can afford.

The policy ranges from $1 a month to $70 a year which also varys from 3 months/6 months to 12 options for individuals or families. After selecting the desired policy, individuals pay the premium via M-Pesa and then Jamii’s platform manages their benefit ledger, claim processing and payout to hospitals.

The platform cuts out the need for paperwork and manpower that makes insurance expensive. However, for each selected policy option, the user can spend 500 times the premium paid to access medical services.

The policyholder is then allowed to get medical services within the benefit cap, upon which they pay the hospital’s approved claims via M-Pesa. This platform provides affordable policies with flexible payment options that match the nature of the low-income families.

Speaking about the tech sector in Tanzania, she indicated that, it is developing with new players coming in and the youth actively playing a major role in the tech space as founders and CEOs.
According to her, there are tons of opportunities in terms of solving basic to business problems in the country using technology. She also commended the youth for being very active and risk-averse in technology.

She indicated that more could be done, in developing the ecosystem by providing the requisite support to make the journey shorter and easier for the founders and CEOs.
Although Lilian faced some challenges with team building and capital, now, she hopes to do more marketing campaigns directed towards customers and SME ; in a country where out of 50 million people, only five percent have health insurance

Balsam International, a heart surgery and cardiology team is preparing to go to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in the next few days to treat 176 heart patients after successful trips to treat 225 heart patients in Yemen.

Dr. Imad Bukhari, cardiac surgery consultant and CEO of Balsam, said that during the six-day trip the team aims to conduct 16-18 open heart surgeries, about 60 catheterizations, offering treatment to 100 cases in outpatient clinics in collaboration with the medical team at the Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute.

The trip comes after coordination with the Ambassador of Tanzania in Saudi Arabia Hamid Eid Maghazi, the Tanzanian Ministry of Health and Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute. Heart surgeon Dr. Rakan Nazer expressed his delight in participating with his colleagues in Balsam in this humanitarian charity work. Dr. Rahim Gul, a Pakistani consultant in cardiac surgery, is taking part in this trip too.

Dr. Abdulaziz Khouja, anesthesiologist, and his colleagues remember joyfully the achievements of “Balsam1” and “Balsam2” trips to Yemen in April and May 2018. In about 12 days, 25 open heart surgeries and more than 200 catheterizations were carried out, in addition to more than 750 clinical and ultrasound checkups.

The nucleuses of this medical team are Saudi citizens who are proud of the international medical status that Saudi doctors have reached in fields such as heart surgery.