WHO designates International Centre for Family Medicine and Primary Health Care as a WHO Collaborating Centre.

(18-10-2010).

The World Health Organization designates the Primafamed Ghent University Centre of the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care (Ghent University) as a WHO Collaborating Centre on Primary Health Care.
This news was announced on October the 16th 2010, at the occasion of the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the department, during the international symposium "Primary Care at a crossroads?".

The World Health Organization, the European region, has, after consultation with the Belgian authority, decided to designate the International Centre for Primary Health Care and Family Medicine of the Department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care (Ghent University) as a WHO Collaborating Centre on Primary Health Care.

The designation lasts for a period of 4 years and can be renewed.

Prof. Jan De Maeseneer will be the head of the centre. There are in the world only 16 WHO Collaborating Centres on Primary Health Care.

This designation illustrates the appreciation for the expertise and the commitment of the department, both regionally and mondially, reporting the development of primary health care at the level of education, research and service delivery.

The international activities of the department are actually coordinated by the Primafamed Ghent University Centre, an international centre for family medicine and primary health care. Within this centre, the Primafamed-network has been developed, a platform of more than 20 institutions in Africa that are developing the training of family physicians and other primary health care providers.

Apart from the International Centre for Reproductive Health (ICRH) of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and the Laboratorium for Parasitology of the Faculty of  Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University receives a third recognition by the World Health Organisation.

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