Kampala — Makerere and Gulu universities will benefit from a new international fund aimed at enhancing medical research on the continent.

Wellcome Trust, one of the leading medical research funders announced a £30m (about sh90b) initiative to bolster health research. It is from this fund that seven consortia, among them The Training of Health Researchers into Vocational Excellence in East Africa (THRiVE), a consortium under which Makerere falls.

THRiVE brings together four African universities, three institutes and two institutes in the UK-- Cambridge University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The other universities are Kilimanjaro Christina Medical College in Tanzania and National University of Rwanda.

Prof. Nelson Sewankambo, the director African Initiative and Principal Makerere University College of Health Sciences, told journalists recently that seven out of 90 consortia that applied for the funds were chosen.