Infectious diseases continue to be global threats to the international community, and have been the core focus of University of Gondar for over half a century. A novel, multi- and inter-disciplinary research center is necessary to help and address the challenges of infectious diseases through integrated basic, clinical and public health approach.
Infectious diseases remain major causes of morbidity and mortality throughout the world and cause immeasurable suffering and loss for individuals, families and societies. Infectious diseases are now the world’s biggest killer of children and young adults. For this reason, infectious diseases represent a tremendous public health threat for people living in tropical and subtropical regions of the world and are responsible for limiting individual’s productivity and socioeconomic development.
Although substantial advances in biomedical sciences and public health measures have facilitated control of many infectious diseases in the past century, the world has witnessed an increasing incidence and geographical expansion of emerging and re-emerging of infectious diseases. Infectious diseases remain among the leading cause of deaths and disability worldwide due to changes in societies, ecosystem, human demographics and behavior, economic development and land use, international travel and commerce, poverty, war, famine, and social inequality. Moreover, tropical diseases are of increasing global concern as tourism, trade, business travel and immigration are common in the today’s world. The magnitude of many tropical infectious diseases problems in endemic areas increasing alarmingly due to changing ecological patterns and to the failure of currently available control measures, e.g., as a result of microbial drug resistance.
Ethiopia as part of the tropical world is highly affected by tropical and infectious diseases. In Africa, the majority of cases of acute infectious illnesses do not present at health facilities and most deaths occur at home. In Ethiopia alone, about 85% deaths occurred in health facilities are caused by infectious diseases. Characterizing burden of infectious diseases syndromes in Ethiopia is important for targeting and prioritizing use of limited resources for optimal curative and preventive services and for research and development of novel strategies and interventions.
The Tropical and Infectious diseases Research Center (TIDRC) is initiated and designed to promote collaborative research endeavors by bringing together advanced laboratory and clinical tools and expertise necessary to develop and assess new approaches to the control of complex tropical and infectious diseases problems of the country.
TIDRRC is established in 2015
Vision
Our vision is to become one of the renowned tropical and infectious disease research center in Africa
Mission
To provide an organizational structure to mobilize, integrate, and develop University of Gondar resources and infrastructure to advance knowledge by focusing on researches in tropical and infectious diseases.
Moto
Addressing societal health problems through need driven and innovative research!
Principles and Values
The Research center will be guided by the following principles and values:
- The research agenda will be integrated with the thematic areas of the University of Gondar
- Research will be problem solving
- Research will be applicable, innovative, and of high quality
- Research will be interdisciplinary and collaborative
- Research findings will be widely disseminated
- The research center will provide a collegial and nurturing environment
- Research center policies and procedures will be transparent
- Evaluation of research center activities will be frequent and transparent