The University of Otago’s Global Health Institute and Mercy Hospital are supporting the start-up of a new Communicable Diseases Research Centre at Fiji National University.
Health institute co-director Associate Prof Patrick Vakaoti said supporting the Fijian university’s plan to build an internationally competitive research centre in the Pacific was part of the institute’s vision of a world in which health problems were solved by those most affected by them.
And it allowed the institute to help under-resourced researchers in the Pacific work on the most pressing health issues in that area.
Mercy Hospital Mission co-ordinator Rev Alofa Lale said the hospital was excited about supporting healthcare in the region.
The hospital had committed $97,500 over three years towards the employment of a co-ordinator for the centre.
Laboratory facilities at the new research centre would require a major fundraising effort over the next two years, the university said.
