Authorities of the German Armed Forces are collaborating with the management of Kumasi Centre for Collaborative Research (KCCR) in Tropical Medicine to provide training in tropical medicine for its medical practitioners and other health personnel serving abroad. The programme, which is part of the long term cooperation agreement between German Armed Forces and Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM) would enable the health personnel to receive a year's practical training in tropical medicine in order to offer medical care to German Missions undertaking peace-keeping operations in tropical countries. Miss Jana Orlowski, Deputy Head of Mission of German Embassy in Ghana, who announced this said a sound education of medical practitioners and health personnel of German Armed Forces, in tropical medicine had become increasingly important because most of their Missions abroad were undertaking peace-keeping operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Djibouti. She was speaking at the 10th anniversary celebration of KCCR at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi on Thursday. KCCR is a joint venture between the Ministry of Health, KNUST and BNITM of Hamburg, Germany. It seeks to offer world-class medical research in tropical medicine and come out with vaccines to prevent them. She said as the army officers were trained in excellent practical education in tropical medicine, Ghanaian hospitals were also supported with additional medical practitioners and the first batch of personnel had started the programme at Agogo Hospital in the Asante-Akim District of Ashanti. Miss Orlowski said KCCR's vision to serve as an international Centre of Excellence for bio-medical and clinical research in tropical medicine was on the right path, adding: "The Centre is a very successful model of German-Ghanaian international scientific cooperation". Dr Thomas Kruppa, Director of KCCR, said the centre would create opportunities for students pursuing Masters and Philosophy Degrees (PhD) by teaching, training and supporting them to attain the necessary skills to be successful in the world of science. He said the centre was also building additional modern laboratory and conducting state of the art laboratory tests in parasitology, immunology and virology. Dr Kruppa said the centre had engaged a substantive head of laboratories from Germany to team up with senior colleagues from School of Medical Science (SMS) of KNUST to train a Ghanaian to head KCCR laboratories. Professor Kwasi Kwafo Adarkwa, Vice-Chancellor of KNUST, commended KCCR for contributing to the development of human and technical resources through teaching, scientific collaboration and the maintenance of research facilities at KNUST. Source: GNA