By IANS
New Delhi : A team of over 30 health experts from several countries are currently in Kerala to study healthcare facilities among the rural people in the state.
The team, which includes health researchers from Pakistan, South Africa, Kenya, Malaysia, Chile, Congo, Ecuador, Peru and Uganda will study a community-based health initiative funded by the Canada-based International Development Research Centre (IDRC), to help tribals and other poor people of Wayanad district access healthcare facilities.
As part of a weeklong visit organised by IDRC and Thiruvananthapuram-based Centre for Development Studies (CDS), these researchers will take back lessons from successful community based models for implementation in their countries.
“The visit to Wayanad allows participating global health researchers to see an excellent model of health research at work and to recognise how important it is, in low or middle income countries, that research is translated into practical programme management decisions and policies,” the IDRC south Asia office said here.
IDRC has been working in Wayanad to improve rural health facilities in the district and had provided Canadian $490,800 in 2002 for the first phase of the health care project in Kerala and has committed Canadian $603,160 for the second phase that began in Dec 2005 and is slated to be completed March 2009.
IDRC is a corporation created by the Canadian parliament in 1970 with the aim of helping the people in developing countries design and conduct research to solve their own development problems.