Building Tanzania’s laboratory capacity through public-private partnership
The Abbott Fund is a philanthropic foundation established by Abbott in 1951. The Abbott Fund’s mission is to create healthier global communities by investing in creative ideas that promote science, expanding access to health care, and strengthening communities worldwide.
For more than 20 years, Abbott has made a significant contribution to the fight against HIV/AIDS through the development of innovative tests and medicines. Expanding on its scientific contributions, Abbott and the Abbott Fund have invested more than $100 million in developing countries to improve the lives of people affected by HIV/AIDS through programs targeting critical areas of need, including strengthening health care systems, supporting children affected by HIV/AIDS, preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and advancing HIV testing and treatment.
Improving hospital laboratories is the latest effort in the ongoing partnership between the Abbott Fund and the Government of Tanzania, which began in 2001. To date, the Abbott Fund has invested more than $50 million to strengthen Tanzania’s health system. Key results to date include:
- At Muhimbili National Hospital, Tanzania, the Abbott Fund built a new outpatient center that serves hundreds of patients each day and integrates HIV care with other services, and renovated, automated and computerized the central pathology laboratory.
- Training more than 10,000 health care workers.
- Providing HIV counseling and testing for more than 150,000 people, and donating one million rapid HIV tests to the Tanzanian national HIV-testing initiative.
- Helping more than 150,000 children and families by providing access to health services, education, and training, and pioneering legal protection for orphans and widows affected by HIV/AIDS.
In 2008, ground was broken on the first of 23 hospital laboratories to be constructed or modernized by 2010 with the Abbott Fund support. The $10 million project will bring improved hospital services to millions of people throughout the country.
Adapted from website and this submitted poster
., February 2009.
For full details, please see website.
