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Ifakara Health Research And Development Centre (IHRDC)

Mission statement:

To develop and sustain a rural district based health research and development resource centre capable of generating new knowledge and relevant information regarding priority problems in health systems at the district, national and international level, through research, training and services aimed at achieving better health and community development.

Introduction:

IHRDC (founded in 1957) is a not for profit, independent, district based health research and resource centre, generating new knowledge and relevant information regarding priorities in health systems at district, national and international level. IHRDC’s aim is to carry out research on topics perceived to be local priorities, to support those planning health systems, and to help members of the local community to achieve better health. The focus of IHRDC’s work has been on areas of high priority in public health such as malaria, TB and schistosomiasis.

Activities:

Activities range from basic research projects, to laboratory research projects, clinical trials and health care projects. Some specific examples include:

Malaria
Activities have included entomological studies of the malarial mosquito, investigations of parasite resistance to drugs, vaccine trials, operational research on the use of insecticide treated mosquito nets, anthropological studies of disease perception, and development of national treatment guidelines. IHRDC has also been involved in scaling up of particular approaches nationally and internationally including working with Unicef to implement district level distribution of insecticide treated mosquito nets.

Tuberculosis
IHRDC has been involved in evaluation of health interventions in a rural setting; specifically in the case of TB, work has included making TB treatment available to communities via community based directly observed treatment (CB-DOTS). Findings from this study contributed to the development of a new national policy.

Schistosomiasis
IHRDC contributed to the WHO manual for schistosomiasis control and supports council health management teams to integrate schistosomiasis into the health delivery system.

International work
IHRDC is part of the multi-country team evaluating the effectiveness, cost and impact of the integrated management of childhood illnesses. Their demographic surveillance system is part of the INDEPTH Network which provides information on the population, rates of fertility and mortality in a rural setting to enable health planners to optimise the use of scarce resources.

Other activities include evaluation of Vitamin A supplementation for infants, malaria transmission intensity and mortality burden across Africa and participation in the malaria drug resistance network.

IHRDC has recently become involved in health informatics, specifically promotion and research on the role of information flow to core functions in the health sector in developing countries.

Areas of expertise:

IHRDC has expertise in epidemiology, health economics, health informatics, population studies, social science, parasitology and molecular biology, biochemistry, medical statistics, microbiology, public health and community health.

Publications:

Find out more about IHRDC’s publications from http://www.ihrdc.org/Publications.htm

For further information please contact:
Hassan Mshinda

Address:

Box 53, Off Mlabani Passage, Ifakara, Tanzania
Tel: 255-(0)23-2625 164
Fax: 255-(0)23-2625 312

Website:

www.ihrdc.org