An intensive RCP / West African College of Physicians (WACP) infectious diseases training course begins in Freetown on Monday 1 May, marking the first RCP activity in Sierra Leone and the culmination of the RCP’s biggest international capacity development programme to date.
The week-long course at Freetown’s Connaught Hospital, Sierra Leone’s principal adult referral centre, is the eighteenth and final course being delivered in west Africa as part of the 3-year Millennium Development Goal 6 Partnership for African Clinical Training (M-PACT). The partnership aims to support the focus of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goal 6 – combatting HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, by increasing access to high-quality clinical training on managing and treating these diseases.
As with preceding courses in Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal, the curriculum will combine in-depth classroom-based teaching on advances in the management of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, Ebola and Lassa fever (led by RCP/WACP members and representatives from Sierra Leone’s national infectious disease control programmes) with practical sessions on the hospital’s wards. More than 30 trainees from across Sierra Leone are expected to attend.