Laos infectious disease centre
12 March 2008
The Mahosot Hospital-Wellcome Trust-University of Oxford Infectious Disease Centre will also function as an important medical research and training centre in the country.
Laos has a population of 5.2 million - the majority of whom are rural rice farmers - and life expectancy in the country is 54 years. Infectious diseases such as typhus, typhoid, malaria and bacteraemia (blood infections caused by invasive bacteria) are major threatening diseases in the country, but until recently these were often diagnosed as malaria.
Since 2000, Dr Paul Newton from the University of Oxford has been leading a collaboration with Mahosot Hospital in Vientiane, the country's capital, funded by the Wellcome Trust. The research programme has proved highly successful, publishing a number of research papers. Now, with an award from the Wellcome Trust, the hospital has opened the country's first infectious disease centre. This centre will contribute to improving not only the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases in Mahosot Hospital, but also to medical research and training in Laos.
It is hoped that the centre will greatly contribute to advancing medical research capacity in Laos, aimed at improving the health of the Lao people and successfully eradicating poverty by the year 2020.
The Mahosot Hospital-Wellcome Trust-University of Oxford Infectious Disease Centre consists of two floors: a patient ward on the ground floor, including ordinary and isolation room beds and a high-dependency unit; and space for laboratories, offices, and meeting rooms on the upper floor. The laboratories will enable the researchers to evaluate diagnostic techniques and culture contagious organisms such as those that cause typhus.
