African Paediatric Fellowship Programme

The African Paediatric Fellowship Programme (APFP) is an academic programme, launched in 2007, within the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Cape Town (UCT), at the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital.

The principal aim of the African Paediatric Fellowship Programme (APFP) is to transfer appropriate specialised skills available at the Hospital to Child Health Professionals elsewhere in Africa (including regional hospitals in South Africa).

The Hospital is ideally placed to offer a programme such as the APFP because of the combination of expertise in effectively a full set of child subspecialties plus a vast patient population suffering from illness and diseases prevalent in the rest of Africa. This combination offers a unique opportunity for specialised training relevant to African trainees' home countries.

The Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital has been training healthcare workers from different parts of Africa for many years. Previously this operated on a case-by-case where applicants approached specific disciplines and requested training. The development of APFP was a great step in formalising training and in linking it to the needs of partner institutions.

The APFP was created in 2007 to develop capacity in clinical services, research and training in child health in Africa and aims to:

• To create a network of skilled African healthcare professionals;
• To build capacity in Africa to improve child health;
• To empower skilled health care professionals to advocate for improving child health in Africa.

The APFP is currently working with the following institutional partners: University of Nairobi (Kenya), University of Lusaka (Zambia), the College of Medicine of Malawi (Blantyre, Malawi), the University of Makerere (Kampala, Uganda) and the University of Harare (Zimbabwe).

For more information about this project please email cht@chtrust.org.za

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