KARACHI: The Aga Khan University (AKU) held a ceremony on Saturday to mark the ground-breaking of a new Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health (CoEWCH) building on its campus.

The facility brings together experts from the fields of medicine, public health, liberal arts, nursing and education and would provide training opportunities on priority issues related to women and children.

“The facility will enable us expand and enhance the university’s study of social determinants that shape and impact the well-being of children and women,” said Professor Zulfiqar Bhutta, centre’s founding director and co-director of SickKids Centre for Global Child Health in Toronto.

The new facility will house three state-of-the-art laboratories for microbiology, epidemiology and nutrition; a research data management unit; faculty offices and dedicated spaces to build the capacity of young researchers in the field.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foun­dation is a key partner of the CoEWCH.

Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2019