Major new project to bring safe surgery to rural populations in Africa

o The SURG-Africa consortium has been awarded €6 million in research funding by the European Commission to bring life-saving surgery to neglected families and communities in Africa.

​The SURG-Africa consortium, led by Professor Ruairi Brugha, (Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine) along with three African and two other European institutions have been awarded €6 million in research funding by the European Commission's Horizon 2020 Programme. SURG-Africa - Scaling up Safe Surgery for District and Rural Populations in Africa - will undertake research to underpin national programmes for the delivery of essential, elective and emergency surgery in Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania; countries with a combined population of 85 million. It will develop and evaluate models for enabling the scarce resource of qualified surgeons in Africa to meet the needs of those in rural areas, through supervising general medical doctors and non-physician clinicians to delivery emergency and basic elective surgery at district hospitals.