The Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) will host 40 secondary Schools at the fourth Open Science Day slated to take place on Thursday at the Institute’s grounds in Entebbe. The fourth Open Science Day is coinciding with the 10th Anniversary of the Makerere University/UVRI Centre of Excellence in Infection and Immunity, Research and Training (MUII Plus) that is spearheading the science Day fair under the stewardship of Prof. Alison Elliot, the Centre Director.
The fourth Open science Day which will be held under the theme: “Science For A Healthy World” will bring together more than 2000 students including over 200 from Arua and Kapchorwa districts.
“This time we have invited a few schools from up country mainly districts such as Iganga, Arua and Kapchorwa because we realized from the other ones they were disadvantaged. Busitema and Makerere University have also been invited. The goal of the Open Science Day is to support the training of young African scientists because we want to see African scientists leading research that is relevant to Africa”, Prof. Alison Elliott disclosed.
She added;
We want to see young African scientists emerging who can deal with the problems of health in Africa. A lot of interest is in infectious diseases such as Ebola and Makerere University/UVRI Centre of Excellence in Infection and Immunity, Research and Training (MUII Plus) exists to help young African scientists who link basic science to the field and the clinic. In the past, it tended to be the African scientists doing the field work and the Americans or Europeans doing the laboratory work, but we want to have Africans who can do both.
Prof. Alison disclosed that to achieve their goal of training expert scientists, there is need to attract a lot of people into science so as to get the best ones to be the leaders of the future.
“The Open science Day is the first level of activity and we have been inviting schools to the Open Days. Like the previous three open science day events, there will be lots of different stalls and the participants will learn about the HIV Immune response, treatment, transmission, circumcision and health, arbo-viruses that are caused by insects such as yellow fever and the Zika virus. The participants will also learn how some of the experiments work in the laboratory, how to manage and analyze data and work out from data whether the virus is going to spread quickly or not”, Prof. Alison revealed.
Prof. Alison urged government to invest more in research and encourage bio-technology industries to invest in Uganda that will use the scientists as well. Minister of State for higher Education, J.C Muyingo will preside over the one day event.
Makerere University/UVRI Centre of Excellence in Infection and Immunity, Research and Training (MUII Plus) is funded by the wellcome Trust through the African Academy of sciences (AAS).
