ADDIS ABABA (EPHI) – The Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI) launched the National and Sub-national Burden of Disease Collaborative Project on 2nd September 2019. The project is financially supported by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Dr. Ebba Abate, Director General of EPHI while making the welcoming speech said that the project has many advantages in filling the information gap not only in the sector but to other sectors and out of the many benefits it will come up with one is to have an in depth analysis and come up with data that can be an input for decision making. And Dr. Ebba also thanked the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Institute for Health Matrix and Evaluation (IHME) University of Washington for both the financial and technical support.
Dr. Solomon Zewdu, Deputy Director of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Ethiopia on his key note address indicated that the Burden of Disease Collaborative Project is highly important for the country and thanked the Ministry of Health specially the Minister of Health, EPHI’s Leadership and the National Data Management Center team for their support and effort for realizing the project.
“The most important thing is we do not know the problem; even if we do, we don’t get evidence thus this project will play vital role to solve this. We are here to transfer the knowledge how to put these data together and translate them to valuable inputs,” said Dr. Mohsen Naghavi who is professor at IHME, University of Washington.
Dr. Amir Aman, FDRE’s Minister of Health, while launching the project mentioned that for the last four years a lot has been done to change the quality of information; evidence based decision making and digitalizing our countries information system. “These data will enable us to determine the factors why Ethiopians die because of health problems and come to hospitals in related issues and guarantee the health quality and equity issues are well addressed” added the Minister.
Source: EPHI