Early diagnosis of hearing impairment & strengthening of the Tanzanian health care system

The ability to hear is a prerequisite for early language development. If hearing impairment is not diagnosed early and speech therapy is not provided, affected children are at high risk for impaired language development. In Africa, identification and care of hearing impairment in childhood often does not take place until children are 3-5 years old or even when they enter school. There are many reasons for this, ranging from the lack of infrastructure to the lack of qualified professionals for early identification and care of childhood hearing impairment. 

The aim of the project is to strengthen the skills of medical personnel in the field of newborn hearing screening and confirmatory diagnostics, to add relevant teaching content to their training and to improve access to newborn health services in Tanzania.

Within the framework of this cooperation, the already existing engagement of the states of Lower Saxony and Tanzania will be advanced. The project will enable a mutual knowledge transfer and thereby further strengthen the general competencies of the professional staff as well as the structures of the health care system in Tanzania. In this way, the project also contributes to an improved resilience of the Tanzanian health care system in the face of challenges in health care, such as most recently in the context of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.  

You can find the factsheet of the project here.