WHO Representative Visits TUMS School of Public Health

WHO Representative Visits TUMS School of Public Health
Date: 12/21/2008

TUMSPR News: Dr. Ambrogio Manenti, the World Health Organization's representative in Iran, met the Dean of Tehran University of Medical Sciences' (TUMS) School of Public Health, Dr. Mesdaghinia, and his deputies to talk on the possibilities of stronger cooperation on Sunday December 14, 2008.

The WHO representative in Iran, Dr. Ambrogio Manenti, met the dean for TUMS Faculty of Public Health, Dr. Mesdaghinina, on his second visit to the school in less than a month when he participated at the concluding session of the one-month-long field epidemiology course held at the faculty. But this time Manenti was there to closely witness the capabilities and expertise of the faculty.

Dr. Mesdaghinina, in his opening remarks described the faculty's educational programs, mainly at post-grad levels, the school's high number of faculty members, which is unique in the country compared to counterparting schools and touched on the school's collaborative activities with world organizations such as the World Health Organization, including the recent field epidemiology course held by WHO assistance, the regional malaria training courses and finally the disaster health management program funded by IANPHI and WHO.

The dean also pointed out that not only EMRO countries had benefitted from the malaria training courses but as diverse countries as Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen, Oman, Kenya, Jordan, Zambia and many more had sent trainees there for education.

On Publication of scientific papers, the dean reported publication of 309 articles in the English language and 70 more in Persian for 2006-2007 and put the faculty per capita for scientific paper production at 4.6 per year. He also added that the faculty publishes three out of five ISI indexed journals of the University.

Dr. Mesdaghinia named the three national laboratories of Influenza, measles & rubella and polio, three focal points to meet all the requirements to be transformed to regional laboratories.

Other collaborative activities in included the ongoing talks with UNFPA for holding MPH classes in English, two running projects with the World Bank and ties with Islamic Development Bank and Karolinska Institute.

Dr. Mesdaghinia, emphasized the objectives of meeting with Dr. Manenti as development of joint educational programs, holding short training courses, development of joint research activities and exchange of experts.

Dr. Ambrogio Manenti, the WHO representative in Iran, knew the volume and extent of the school's health interventions as very remarkable and said that he had a more convincing look for joint activities. He added “Iran has a well-developed educational system concerning health and this makes it challenging for us at WHO to provide technical assistance as you have lots of them already”.

He suggested three fields for cooperation:

1- Epidemiological training courses which its pilot was undertaken a few weeks ago. He hoped the school could advance in this program and consolidate it into a regional training course.

2- The malaria training course to be more regionally expanded and to take the opportunities created by the global fund provided for malaria eradication in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

3- Disaster management and the IANPHI programs that the school is working on would be a good starting point.

The WHO representative believed that three categories proposed by Dr. Mesdaghinia for joint activities were interesting enough to reflect upon but said due to biannual planning of the office there was no room for the inclusion of new programs, except emergent ones, but in a few months' time, planning for 2010-2011 would start and holding a few more meetings and talks would help prepare for the planning and inclusion of proposals.

Later on, Dr. Manenti visited the school's three national laboratories. Earlier during the talks, Dr. Mokhtari-Azad had proposed the promotion and active involvement of the three laboratories in regional activities and Dr. Manenti upon the visit confirmed the possibility and pointed out that the three labs had a large potential to be transformed to regional reference laboratories.

http://publicrelations.tums.ac.ir/english/news/detail.asp?newsID=10060