Report on the 10th Annual College of Medicine Research Dissemination Meeting

The theme for the 2006 College of Medicine Research Dissemination Meeting was “A decade of research dissemination”.In that sense, it was a celebration of another milestone for the College of Medicine. The meeting was opened by the guest of honour, Dr Charles Mwansambo as Chairman of the National Health Sciences Research Committee. As in previous years, it was held at the Mahatma Ghandi Campus of the College of Medicine on the day following the last day of final year student examinations. It was a very successful meeting. The quantity (69 this year) and quality of presentations improved on previous years. The abstracts are set out below. Major work of national and international relevance was`presented such as beneficial impact of the Hib vaccine, return of chloroquine efficacy in children with malaria in Ndirande and variety of work related to tackling the HIV/AIDS epidemic. For the second year, a session was devoted to a selection of year 4 student-project presentations and these were very good. Ms Grace Banda won the prize for the best medical student presentation for her work on “Acceptibility of companionship during labour”. The meeting attracted over 200 participants representing a range of health-related activities going on in Malawi. Efforts to raise funds for the event were more successful than previous years and major sponsors included the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme, Blantyre,and the University of North Carolina Project, Lilongwe. The conference was also a focus for attention for the recently established College of Medicine Research Support Centre and for renewed interest in the Malawi Medical Journal. The COM Annual Research Dissemination Meeting is a major health research dissemination meeting in the Malawian calendar. It is encouraging to see that the interest and participation in this important vehicle of dissemination of health research in Malawi continues to grow. Enjoy the abstracts.