The article presents an interim status of the results after two years of collaborative provenance research conducted by the Museen Stade (Germany) and the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR, Tanzania), focusing on the collection of the colonial botanist Karl Braun. Drawing on an exceptionally broad range of sources in German archives, the study reconstructs detailed object biographies and, for the first time, offers a comprehensive analysis of the colonial history of the Amani Institute. At the same time, the evaluation of Braun's estate is constrained by linguistic challenges and the one-sided perspective of colonial records. Complementary field research in Tanzania was therefore undertaken to broaden and critically reflect these perspectives. The article argues that the appropriation of cultural objects in colonial contexts cannot be understood in isolation but must be situated within the institutional, scientific, and political power structures of the Amani Institute. A purely museum-based provenance research approach thus proves insufficient. Instead, an interdisciplinary framework is required to adequately address the entanglement of knowledge production, military violence, and cultural appropriation. This applies not only to historical analysis but also to the development of contemporary decolonial research practices, which depend on international collaboration, multi-perspectival approaches, and the critical reflection of ethical and structural conditions.1
By the mid-2000s, the contribution of Tanzania’s pharmaceutical industry to local drug circulation was low compared to imports, with the latter mostly coming from India. The situation had mainly stayed the same since independence in 1961, despite a political desire to develop a local, self-sustaining drug supply pipeline. However, global developments affecting the pharmaceutical industry in the late 20th century around drug quality, safety, and availability to the majority of the poor of the Global South would later galvanize different actors, led by the World Health Organization (WHO), to respond. Among the interventions was the introduction of a set of evolving regulations, codes, and guidelines known as Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). An archive located at the Tanzania Medicine and Medical Devices Authority (TMDA) provides a first-hand account, presented here for the first time, of the entanglements between selected local manufacturers and the regulator as GMPs were introduced into the country in the late 1980s. The TMDA archive’s files offer insights into the response of local manufacturers in this early period of GMP’s implementation. The archive facilitates a study of how the introduction of GMPs should be seen in connection with global economic and political events when, around 1990, the country’s socialism-inspired policy of health and drugs provision was challenged by mandatory global free markets that rescinded governments’ monopoly within the sector. The paper argues that while GMPs were a vital regulation to ensure drug quality and safety, their introduction caught local manufacturers off guard and stifled local drug production capacity while offering a favourable opportunity for imports, mainly from India, to dominate the markets, as the same rules did not initially apply to them locally. However, GMPs did offer an opportunity for the country’s drug regulatory infrastructure to be strengthened.
The SARS-Cov-2 virus (COVID-19) has had a global social and economic impact. Despite the growing evidence, its effects on access and delivery of maternal and child health services in low-income countries are still unclear. This cross-sectional case study was conducted in Mjini Magharibi, Chake Chake, and Ilala districts in Tanzania to help fill this gap. The study combined qualitative and quantitative data collection methods, providing an account of the evolution of the pandemic and the associated control measures in Tanzania. We drew from 34 in-depth interviews, 60 semi-structured interviews, and 14 focus group discussions with key informants, patients, and health providers, and complemented the findings with a review of pandemic reports and health facility records. We followed the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR) to provide an account of the findings. Our account of the pandemic shows that there was at times an inconsistent policy response in Tanzania, with diverse control measures adopted at various stages of the epidemic. There was a perception that COVID-19 services were prioritized during the epidemic at the expense of regular ones. There were reports of reorganisation of health facilities, reallocation of staff, rescheduled antenatal and postnatal clinics, and reduced time for health education and child monitoring. Scarcity of essential commodities was reported, such as vaccines, equipment, and medical supplies. Such perceptions were in part supported by the routine utilization evidence in the three districts, showing a lower uptake of antenatal, postnatal, family planning, and immunization services, as well as fewer institutional deliveries. Our findings suggest that, although the policy response in Tanzania was erratic, it was rather fear of the pandemic itself and diversion of resources to control COVID-19, that may have contributed most to lower the utilization of mother and child services. For future emergencies, it will be crucial to ensure the policy response does not weaken the population's demand for services.
INTRODUCTION:Awareness-raising campaigns play a central role in efforts to combat drug resistance. These campaigns assume that knowledge deficits drive poor practices that increase resistance. Therefore, increasing awareness will promote prudent practices and reduce resistance. However, most awareness campaigns have been developed and evaluated in high-income and public health settings. Consequently, it is not clear whether these campaigns are effective in low-income and middle-income countries and/or within animal health settings.METHODS:Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were used to collect narratives of veterinary drug use among Maasai pastoralists (n=70), animal health professionals (n=10) and veterinary drug sellers (n=5). Thematic analysis was used to identify recurring themes across narratives and groups.RESULTS:Narratives of Maasai and animal health professionals indicated that Maasai treated their livestock with limited input from the professional sector and that non-prudent treatment practices were observed (eg, using antimicrobials as 'energizers'). Professionals linked these practices to knowledge and attitudinal deficits among the Maasai, while Maasai narratives highlighted the importance of climatic uncertainties and cultural beliefs surrounding veterinary care.CONCLUSION:Narratives of veterinary drug use from animal health professionals are consistent with the knowledge deficit assumption guiding awareness-raising efforts. In contrast, Maasai narratives highlight how animal health practices are patterned by cultural norms interacting with factors largely outside of Maasai control, including a constrained professional veterinary sector. If these cultural and structural contexts remain unconsidered in awareness-raising strategies, current campaigns are unlikely to motivate practices necessary to limit drug resistance, especially within low-income and middle-income settings.
Global, national, and local efforts to limit antimicrobial resistance (AMR) often stress the importance of raising awareness among users, sellers, and prescribers of antimicrobial drugs. This emphasis is founded upon two assumptions. First, awareness is limited, particularly concerning the links between antimicrobial use (AMU) and AMR. Second, “filling the awareness gaps” will motivate practises that will limit AMR. The first assumption is supported by knowledge, attitudes, and practises (KAP) surveys but these same studies provide mixed support for the second, with several studies finding that knowledge and attitudes are not correlated with related practises. This disconnect may arise as these surveys typically do not collect data on the cultural or historical contexts that pattern AMU. To explore how these contexts impact KAP related to AMU and AMR, we use a mixed-methods approach to examine veterinary practises among Maasai pastoralists in Tanzania. We combine a quantitative KAP survey ( N = 195 households) with extensive qualitative data from focus group discussions ( N = 55 participants). Results document limited awareness of AMR but also find that knowledge and attitudes are not correlated with practise. Thematic analysis of qualitative data pointed to three reasons behind this disconnect, including (1) Maasai self-perceptions as veterinary experts, (2) the central role of livestock in Maasai culture, and (3) the use of ethnoveterinary knowledge in animal health treatment. We argue that mixed-method approaches will be critical to developing the targeted awareness campaigns needed to limit the emergence and transmission of AMR.
This book contains the abstracts of the papers/posters presented at the Tanzania Health Summit 2020 (THS-2020) Organized by the Ministry of Health Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children (MoHCDGEC); President Office Regional Administration and Local Government (PORALG); Ministry of Health, Social Welfare, Elderly, Gender, and Children Zanzibar; Association of Private Health Facilities in Tanzania (APHFTA); National Muslim Council of Tanzania (BAKWATA); Christian Social Services Commission (CSSC); & Tindwa Medical and Health Services (TMHS) held on 25–26 November 2020. The Tanzania Health Summit is the annual largest healthcare platform in Tanzania that attracts more than 1000 participants, national and international experts, from policymakers, health researchers, public health professionals, health insurers, medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists, private health investors, supply chain experts, and the civil society. During the three-day summit, stakeholders and decision-makers from every field in healthcare work together to find solutions to the country’s and regional health challenges and set the agenda for a healthier future.
Animal health service providers can play an important role in limiting drug resistance by promoting responsible and prudent use of veterinary drugs. Recognizing this potential, international agencies and governments have called for these providers to receive drug stewardship training, particularly providers in low- and middle-income countries where top-down regulations (e.g., national regulation of veterinary prescriptions) are largely unfeasible. The success of these stewardship trainings to promote responsible and prudent use will depend on many factors, including understanding how livestock-keeping communities currently interact with animal health service providers. Here, we use a mixed methods approach to identify and understand animal health seeking practices among Maasai pastoralists in Tanzania. Combining qualitative interviews (N = 31) and structured surveys (N = 195), we show the majority of Maasai respondents (≈80 %) do not frequently consult animal health service providers with most relying on advice from family and friends. Logistic regression models of health seeking practices find that increasing age, education, observance of treatment failure, and herd disease burdens are associated with greater odds of seeking out health services. Quantitative results were supported by data from focus group discussions and in-depth interviews that showed Maasai view animal health service providers as measures of last resort, whose input is largely sought after self-treatment with veterinary drugs fail. We argue patterns of animal health seeking among the Maasai are partially the consequence of their high confidence in their own abilities in livestock disease and treatment and generally low confidence in the skills of animal health service providers. We link this high sense of self-efficacy to the culturally engrained process by which Maasai develop mastery in animal health and how the roles and norms in Maasai culture surrounding animal health influence Maasai perceptions of animal health professionals. Our results highlight the need for more research to understand Maasai perceptions of animal health service providers as well as the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of these providers. Finally, our study emphasizes that the success of drug stewardship trainings will require efforts to first understand the cultural and historical contexts driving health seeking practices that impact perceptions of animal health service providers and animal health practices more generally.
Background Despite widespread use of long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) and other tools, malaria caused 409,000 deaths worldwide in 2019. While indoor residual spraying (IRS) is an effective supplement, IRS is moderately expensive and logistically challenging. In endemic areas, IRS requires yearly application just before the main rainy season and potential interim reapplications. A new technology, insecticide-treated wall liner (ITWL), might overcome these challenges. Methods We conducted a 44-cluster two-arm randomized controlled trial in Muheza, Tanzania from 2015 to 2016 to evaluate the cost and efficacy of a non-pyrethroid ITWL to supplement LLINs, analyzing operational changes over three installation phases. The estimated efficacy (with 95% confidence intervals) of IRS as a supplement to LLINs came mainly from a published randomized trial in Muleba, Tanzania. We obtained financial costs of IRS from published reports and conducted a household survey of a similar IRS program near Muleba to determine household costs. The costs of ITWL were amortized over its 4-year expected lifetime and converted to 2019 US dollars using Tanzania’s GDP deflator and market exchange rates. Results Operational improvements from phases 1 to 3 raised ITWL coverage from 35.1 to 67.1% of initially targeted households while reducing economic cost from $34.18 to $30.56 per person covered. However, 90 days after installing ITWL in 5666 households, the randomized trial was terminated prematurely because cone bioassay tests showed that ITWL no longer killed mosquitoes and therefore could not prevent malaria. The ITWL cost $10.11 per person per year compared to $5.69 for IRS. With an efficacy of 57% (3–81%), IRS averted 1162 (61–1651) disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) per 100,000 population yearly. Its incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) per DALY averted was $490 (45% of Tanzania’s per capita gross national income). Conclusions These findings provide design specifications for future ITWL development and implementation. It would need to be efficacious and more effective and/or less costly than IRS, so more persons could be protected with a given budget. The durability of a previous ITWL, progress in non-pyrethroid tools, economies of scale and competition (as occurred with LLINs), strengthened community engagement, and more efficient installation and management procedures all offer promise of achieving these goals. Therefore, ITWLs merit ongoing study. First posted 2015 ( NCT02533336 ).
The nutritional and economic potentials of livestock systems are compromised by the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance. A major driver of resistance is the misuse and abuse of antimicrobial drugs. The likelihood of misuse may be elevated in low- and middle-income countries where limited professional veterinary services and inadequately controlled access to drugs are assumed to promote non-prudent practices (e.g., self-administration of drugs). The extent of these practices, as well as the knowledge and attitudes motivating them, are largely unknown within most agricultural communities in low- and middle-income countries. The main objective of this study was to document dimensions of knowledge, attitudes and practices related to antimicrobial use and antimicrobial resistance in livestock systems and identify the livelihood factors associated with these dimensions. A mixed-methods ethnographic approach was used to survey households keeping layers in Ghana (N = 110) and Kenya (N = 76), pastoralists keeping cattle, sheep, and goats in Tanzania (N = 195), and broiler farmers in Zambia (N = 198), and Zimbabwe (N = 298). Across countries, we find that it is individuals who live or work at the farm who draw upon their knowledge and experiences to make decisions regarding antimicrobial use and related practices. Input from animal health professionals is rare and antimicrobials are sourced at local, privately owned agrovet drug shops. We also find that knowledge, attitudes, and particularly practices significantly varied across countries, with poultry farmers holding more knowledge, desirable attitudes, and prudent practices compared to pastoralist households. Multivariate models showed that variation in knowledge, attitudes and practices is related to several factors, including gender, disease dynamics on the farm, and source of animal health information. Study results emphasize that interventions to limit antimicrobial resistance should be founded upon a bottom-up understanding of antimicrobial use at the farm-level given limited input from animal health professionals and under-resourced regulatory capacities within most low- and middle-income countries. Establishing this bottom-up understanding across cultures and production systems will inform the development and implementation of the behavioral change interventions to combat antimicrobial resistance globally.
Abstract The ‘Africanization’ of science after decolonization was replete with dreams. Claims to Africa's place in the high-modern world, expectations of national technological and economic progress, and individual dreams of scientific discovery, professional development and fulfilled careers drove scientific work and lives. The term Africanization, coined by the colonizers, reproduced colonial notions of race but also stimulated the imagination of mid-twentieth-century African scientists, who hotly debated and enthusiastically embraced it. Half a century later, some dreams have failed, but many more remain unfulfilled. This article examines two reunions of Tanzanian and European science workers – in Amani in 2015 and in Cambridge in 2013 – who had worked together in the decades after Tanzania's independence at Amani Hill Research Station, then one of Africa's foremost laboratories for research on malaria and other tropical diseases. It explores ideas of good science and experiences of social differentiation, divergent dreams and persistent tensions – and the role of joking in remembering these.
Die Forschungsstation Amani in Tansanias Usambara-Bergen liegt heute weitgehend brach – gegrundet als landwirtschaftliches Institut wahrend der deutschen Besatzung war sie spater fuhrendes britisches und tansanisches Institut fur tropenmedizinische Forschung. Wie leben Mitarbeiter und Bewohner nun mit den Uberresten dieses wissenschaftlich-modernistischen Projektes? Und was konnen Sozialanthropologen, Historiker und Kunstler gemeinsam mit solch einem Ort tun, mit seinen Widerspruchen von vergangenen Zukunften und gegenwartigem Stillstand, von kolonialer Gewalt und fortschrittlichen kollektiven wie individuellen Hoffnungen? Eine interdisziplinare Auseinandersetzung mit materiellen Spuren vergangener und gescheiterter Zukunftsentwurfe, deren Ursprung in der kolonialen Besetzung Ostafrikas durch deutsche Truppen, Beamte, Siedler und Wissenschaftler liegt.
Background Multinational clinical trials are logistically complex and require close coordination between various stakeholders. They must comply with global clinical standards and are accountable to multiple regulatory and ethical bodies. In resource-limited settings, it is challenging to understand how to apply global clinical standards to international, national, and local factors in clinical trials, making multiple-level stakeholder engagement an important element in the successful conduct of these clinical trials. Main body During the planning and implementation of a large multinational clinical trial for intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in pregnancy in resource-limited areas of sub-Saharan Africa, we encountered numerous challenges, which required implementation of a range of engagement measures to ensure compliance with global clinical and regulatory standards. These challenges included coordination with ongoing global malaria efforts, heterogeneity in national regulatory structures, sub-optimal healthcare infrastructure, local practices and beliefs, and perspectives that view healthcare providers with undue trust or suspicion. In addition to engagement with international bodies, such as the World Health Organization, the Malaria in Pregnancy Consortium, the Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in order to address the challenges just described, Pfizer Inc. and Medicines for Malaria Venture (the “Sponsoring Entities” for these studies) and investigators liaised with national- and district-level stakeholders such as health ministers and regional/local community health workers. Community engagement measures undertaken by investigators included local meetings with community leaders to explain the research aims and answer questions and concerns voiced by the community. The investigators also engaged with family members of prospective trial participants in order to be sensitive to local practices and beliefs. Conclusion Engagement with key stakeholders at international and national levels enabled the Sponsoring Entities to address challenges by aligning the study design with the requirements of health and regulatory agencies and to understand and address healthcare infrastructure needs prior to trial initiation. Local stakeholder engagement, including community members, study participants, and family enabled the investigators to address challenges by ensuring that study design and conduct were adapted to local considerations and ensuring accurate information about the study aims was shared with the public. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, ID: NCT01103063 . Registered on 7 April 2010.