FUNDS SOUGHT TO HELP TRAIN MALAGASY HEALTH PROFESSIONALS AT LONDON

Madagascar and the world famous London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine are calling on companies, individuals or organisations to assist
with funds for a scholarship programme to train Malagasy public health
specialists who will help to cut Madagascar’s high death toll from malaria,
tuberculosis and simply giving birth.

According to recent statistics as many as 5,000 children under the age of
five die of malaria in Madagascar every year and the country has one of the
world’s highest death rates for mothers during childbirth due to lack of
pre-natal care, facilities  and organisation.   As many as 467 Malagasy
mothers die in child birth for every 100,000 live births – a statistic not
dissimilar to that of Victorian London.

As Europe’s leading research and postgraduate teaching institute in tropical
medicine and part of London University, the London School has spent many
decades establishing close links with the developing world and creating
specialist courses to help highly talented and motivated individuals from
the third world improve their countries’ health systems and tackle the major
diseases which lead to poor health and shorter life expectancy.

The London School’s Malagasy Scholarship Committee (LUSH), is seeking
finance to train outstanding Malagasy health professionals in public health
and tropical medicine in London over the next ten years, to enable them to
return to help transform their country’s health systems. The London School
already has successful health and research programmes in India and several
African countries, and is looking to provide the long term help in
Madagascar that is sometimes ignored in international aid funding.

In addition to training top health professionals, the London School has
carried out breakthrough research on malaria, TB, AIDS and many other
tropical diseases and is currently working on an anti-malaria vaccine.
Richard Cowper, Adviser to the International Board of the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in Madagascar for six months to help promote
closer links between the London School and Madagascarl, says: “This high
powered scholarship programme which aims to give the best public health
education in the world to Madagascar’s brightest and best, will offer a
golden public relations opportunity to any company or organisation which
helps support it.  Every Malagasy would like to buy a product or service
from a company which is high minded enough to help extend and improve the
lives of the country’s citizens.”

Any company, NGO, individual or organisation who would like to support this
programme or an outstanding Malagasy health leader of tomorrow should please
contact: Richard Cowper, Email richard@richardcowper.com or Ryan Vickers
ryvickers@gmail.com.  Further information about the London School of Hygiene
and Tropical Medicine, its research, courses and major world achievements
can be found at http://www.lshtm.ac.uk