On July 9th, 2011 South Sudan becomes an independent state. An historic day for South Sudan and for Africa. Most of the population in South Sudan have only experienced war. The country has the highest matenal mortality rates in the world (over 2.000 per 100.000 births).
During the last days I have attended “The first conference of Southern Sudan Medical Specialists”. About 70 of the existing 82 medical specialists from South Sudan attended the meeting. Many live abroad, some live in Northern Sudan and about half of them work in the south. Unfortunately, many specialists work in administrative positions. The details of an earlier survey is found here.
Although there are three medical schools in the country, none work now, mainly because of difficulties in transferring university functions from the north to the south.
The main topic discussed was to form a body to run, and to oversee medical specialist training in this new nation. I will update this page as documents are made available.
More information about the health situation in this country can is found at Southern Sudan Centre for Census, Statistics and Evaluation (SSCCSE), and from the Southern Sudan Medical Journal.