• Submitted by: admin
• Health and Medicine
• 11 / 17 / 2006

By Rajab Mkasaba

CUBA has promised to increase a number of medical specialists working in Zanzibar, to strengthen medical services in the Isles.

The Cuban Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ms Yiliam Jimenez made the promise yesterday when she met Zanzibar President Amani Karume and his delegation in in Havana.

The Cuban government has also pledged to open a special health services college in Zanzibar.

Ms Jimenez said that the specialists who would work in various Zanzibar hospitals would in addition to the doctors currently based in the Isles from Cuba.

She said that Cuba will also start a special programme of training doctors in Zanzibar by using modern technology whereby every Cuban doctor in the programme would train three Zanzibari doctors.

The doctors who will successfully complete the training programme would be conferred with certificates of medical science that are recognised by Cuban universities.

President Karume advised that the special health services college be affiliated to the State University of Zanzibar, saying that the university has several departments of natural and social sciences.

"Starting a health sciences department at the university would bolster it and expand its academic dispensing role," he said.

Ms Jimenez concurred with President Karume's views and said that it likely that her government would affiliate the college to the state university.

Source: Daily News-TSN