Student award promotes NCD know-how

Merck diabetes and hypertension awards launch

About the awards

The diabetes award was inaugurated last year in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has grown to include Africa.

Students from medical schools in both regions will be asked to submit a concept paper aimed at improving awareness about the early detection and prevention of diabetes in their countries and to encourage their society, scientific community, local authorities, media and relevant stakeholders to think and act on the theme of “Diabetes every day”. The winner from each university will be awarded a one-year postgraduate diabetes diploma.

Merck has also kicked off its Hypertension Award with theme “What the healthy heart needs”, the winner of this award will be conferred a one-year postgraduate preventive cardiovascular medicines diploma from South Wales University.

Building healthcare capacity

"Merck plays an important role in building healthcare capacity in Africa by addressing non-communicable diseases(NCDs) focusing on rural areas, medical students and local partnership with academia, ministries of health, policy makers and governments,” Belen Garijo, CEO of Merck Healthcare says.

Growing risk

Dr Dima Abd Elmannan, clinical dean of Dubai Medical Colleges states: “In recent years, we have seen a rapid rise in type 2 diabetes across all age groups.”

“The UAE is ranked 16th worldwide, with 19,2% of the UAE population living with diabetes. These statistics indicate that the region has high risk factors for diabetes, mostly related to rising obesity rates and physical inactivity. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop accredited teaching programmes.”

"We’re excited about the students’ applications for Merck Diabetes Award, most of their ideas were very innovative and can make a change in diabetes landscape in UAE. The scientific committee decided to give the award to two applicants, the first winner was Nujood Al Shirawi, a graduate ff Dubai Medical University and currently interning as a house officer under the auspices of the Dubai Health Authority (DHA).

The other winners were two medical students in their fourth year of Dubai Medical University, Sana Laraib Daud and Zoubia Fathima.

Expanding across Africa

Dr Ahmed Reja, president of the International Diabetes Federation says: “We are very happy to partner with Merck in driving their strategy to build diabetes capacity and roll out the award across Africa. The outcome in UAE was remarkable, it encouraged the students to be more innovative and take a leadership position to fight diabetes in their own country.”

“I am confident that the students across Africa will be equally enthusiastic to participate and present their own ideas and concepts to improve the access to diabetes healthcare solutions in their own countries” he adds.

“This combined diabetes and hypertension education programme will contribute towards providing guidelines and clinical practice for prevention, diagnosis and management of those diseases and their complications. The objective of this initiative is to increase the level of knowledge for medical students,” Professor Eligah Ogola, vice president of Pan African Cardiology Society, explains.

Merck is planning to target more than 25,000 students by the end of 2018 expanding to more African, Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries with special focus on NCDs such as diabetes, cancer and fertility management. The programme will also kick off initiatives on building research capacity and improving supply chain in order to improve patient safety in Africa.

Click here to find out more about the Merck Capacity Advancement Programme.