AFRICANEWS
Views and news on peace, justice and reconciliation in Africa
April 2001
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Action and contactsNAVRONGO HEALTH RESEARCH CENTRE - CENTRE OF EXCELLENCESantuah Niagia Ghana
From its humble beginnings in the late 1980s and housed in a single structure behind the War Memorial Hospital in Navrongo, in Northern Ghana, the Navrongo Health Research Centre (NHRC) has grown into a centre of excellence in health research of international repute. It all started when in the backyard of the War Memorial Hospital in Navrongo a team of researchers from Ghana and abroad jointly set out to carry out health research. The team was composed of researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi and the Ministry of Health, Ghana. Their agenda was to investigate the impact of repeated large doses of Vitamin A on child survival in the Kassena Nankana District. The research station became known as the Vitamin A Supplement Trials (VAST). Upon successful completion of this study the station was designated a Research Centre by the Ministry of Health and the name changed to the Navrongo Health Research Centre in 1992. After its establishment the first study of the Centre was focussed on the efficacy of Insecticide Treated Bednets in the Kassena Nankana District. Findings from the study fed into a national policy on strategies to control malaria in Ghana. The NHRC is mandated to conduct research into health problems prevailing in the country as a whole but in particular in the rural areas of the sahelian ecological belt of northern Ghana and advise policymakers on feasible interventions to improve the health of the people. Today the Centre's health research focuses on malaria, acute respiratory infections, cerebrospinal meningitis, diarrhoea, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis, community based service delivery and family planning. The Navrongo Demographic Surveillance System (NDSS) is the backbone of the Centre. It provides longitudinal data on a wide variety of demographic factors on every resident in the "district. The unit is currently tracking all 140,000 residents of the district. This generates comprehensive data, which serves as the bedrock for large-scale studies such as the bednet trial to be implemented quickly and at low cost. Research findings on these diseases have formed the basis for policymakers to design interventions to improve the health of the people especially those in the rural areas.
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