A Kenya-based flying doctors group has been given a multi-million-dollar grant by a US consultancy giant, less than two weeks after winning a global health award from Microsoft founder Bill Gates, officials say.
Accenture, the conglomerate that emerged from Andersen Consulting in 1989, said it was donating 2,9 million dollars (18 mio. DKR) in cash, services and equipment to the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF).
Based in Nairobi, AMREF was founded in 1957 as the Flying Doctors of East Africa and claims to be the oldest and largest indigenous African health organization.
The 1,7 million dollars in cash and 1,2 million dollar of gifts in kind will be used to help the group train 26.000 Kenyan nurses in treating and preventing infectious diseases, specifically malaria, Accenture said in a statement.
– We are pleased to be able to support AMREF in its endeavors to mitigate the training crisis in the Kenyan healthcare system, said Vernon Ellis, chairman of Accentures international operations.
The five-year program will create 32 regional centers throughout Kenya where nurses will be trained using the firms electronic learning systems to make up for a chronic shortage of nursing instructors, the statement said.
On June 2, AMREF was awarded the 2005 Gates Award for Global Health and a one-million-dollar cash prize from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for achievements in improving health in the developing world.
It has expanded its operations from emergency rescues to more general medical activities, including fighting infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and promoting public health in some of the continents most impoverished regions.
Kilde: The Push Journal
