The University of Dodoma convened its first scientific conference on health under the banner of healthy lives and well-being for all, and the abstracts published in BMC Proceedings offer an unusually candid snapshot of where Tanzania stands. The meeting gathered keynote addresses, plenary sessions and dozens of research presentations spanning reproductive health, biomedical science, health systems, non-communicable diseases, infectious diseases and food security. Together they describe a country that has recorded striking gains in some areas, such as maternal survival and kidney transplantation, while confronting stubborn shortfalls in others, from diabetes control to postnatal care uptake.
The non-communicable disease picture framed much of the discussion. Keynote speaker Kaushik L. Ramaiya of Shree Hindu Mandal Hospital noted that non-communicable diseases, injuries and mental health conditions are leading causes of disability and premature death worldwide, with an estimated 70 percent of all global deaths attributed to non-communicable diseases and 85 percent of those premature deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries in 2019. Cardiovascular diseases alone accounted for 17.9 million deaths in 2019, about 32 percent of all global deaths. In sub-Saharan Africa, cardiovascular-related deaths reached roughly 470,000 in 2019 and produced 22.9 million disability-adjusted life years. Ramaiya traced the shift to an epidemiologic transition in which infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV, once the dominant causes of illness, are now sharing space with a rapidly rising burden of metabolic risk factors including elevated blood glucose, abnormal blood lipids, central obesity and hypertension, driven partly by rural-to-urban migration and changing diets and lifestyles.
On the infectious disease side, Takamasa Ueno of Kumamoto University presented findings from a study of 200 frontline health care workers recruited at two tertiary hospitals in Dar es Salaam two years into the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite vaccination rates below 20 percent, the workers showed a broad range of neutralizing activity against coronaviruses, though no neutralization was detected against MERS-CoV. Neutralizing antibody titers for SARS-CoV-2 correlated strongly with those for SARS-CoV-1, but not with other coronaviruses, and cross-neutralization against the newer Omicron subvariants BQ.1.1 and XBB.1.5 was significantly reduced compared with BA.1 and BA.2. Ueno suggested that substantial cross-reactive immunity, possibly attributable to coronaviruses circulating among bat species in the region, might help explain the relatively milder official COVID-19 impact in sub-Saharan Africa, while cautioning that the true impact may be underestimated because coronavirus infections and immune responses in African populations remain largely understudied.
Maternal and child health featured prominently, with figures that illustrate both momentum and unevenness. A desk review of health system data from 2015 to 2023 presented by Ahmad Mohamed Makuwani of the Ministry of Health reported that Tanzania’s maternal mortality ratio fell to 104 per 100,000 live births in 2022 from 556 in 2015/2016, and the under-five mortality ratio dropped from 67 in 2016 to 43 in 2022. Newborn mortality, however, barely moved, standing at 26, 25 and 24 in 2010, 2016 and 2022 respectively. The review credited leadership initiatives across three presidential administrations, including emergency obstetric and newborn care facility construction and a campaign launched in 2018, with improving access to services within five kilometers to 75 to 85 percent, raising institutional delivery to 81 percent, and cutting case fatality to 0.7 percent. Telemedicine via WhatsApp groups allowed primary care workers to review maternal and perinatal deaths virtually, identifying suboptimal skills and leadership as leading causes of death.
Universal health coverage emerged as another central theme. Ntuli Kapologwe of the East, Central and Southern Africa Health Community reported that Tanzania’s immunization rate reached 94 percent by 2022 while the universal health coverage service coverage index stands at 43. The 2023 Universal Health Insurance Act established a legal framework for mandatory health insurance, and the government launched an Integrated Community Health Program involving more than 137,294 community health workers to reach rural and underserved areas. Yet significant disparities persist in regions such as Mwanza and Kilimanjaro, early antenatal care remains underutilized, and the Health Basket Fund, a major financing source for primary care, has been affected by fund mismanagement and delayed disbursements.
Kidney care provided some of the most concrete progress. Alfred Meremo of the University of Dodoma reported that chronic kidney disease affects more than 850 million people worldwide and caused over 3.1 million deaths in 2019, and that in Tanzania an estimated 5,800 to 8,500 people have end-stage kidney disease requiring dialysis or transplant. Until January 2022, 2,750 patients were on dialysis and 325 had received kidney transplants nationally. A collaboration between the Ministry of Health, Japan’s Tokushukai Medical Group, the University of Dodoma and Benjamin Mkapa Hospital has enabled 40 kidney transplant operations since March 2018. Surgical colleague Masumbuko Mwashambwa detailed the program’s outcomes: 92 percent of the 40 recipients had a favorable outcome, three kidneys were lost, in-hospital mortality was 2.6 percent, and overall mortality stood at 10.3 percent, with a median hospital stay of 22.5 days.
A parallel effort in pediatric bone marrow transplantation showed similar promise. Shakilu Jumanne and colleagues described a project launched in 2018 with the Italian charity HELP3-ODV to establish a transplant center at Benjamin Mkapa Hospital, including seven restricted-access isolation rooms, air filtration machines and an x-ray blood irradiator. From January 2023 to May 2024, ten children with sickle cell disease, a condition Tanzania carries at one of the highest global birth incidences at roughly 6 per 1,000 live births, received transplants from HLA-identical sibling donors. All patients engrafted, all experienced febrile neutropenia that responded to antibiotics, three developed grade II skin acute graft-versus-host disease that resolved with treatment, and at a median follow-up of 163.5 days no severe graft-versus-host disease had been diagnosed. All patients remain transfusion-free without sickle cell events.
Not every finding was encouraging. A cross-sectional survey of 1,180 diabetic patients across 29 tertiary facilities in mainland Tanzania, conducted by Filbert Nyoni and Renatus Nyarubamba of the Tanzania Diabetes Association in early 2024, found an average glycated hemoglobin of 9.2 percent, with more than 78 percent of patients above the 7 percent threshold indicating uncontrolled blood sugar. Men, patients under 40 and those diagnosed within the previous five years had the highest averages. The authors concluded that the elevated HbA1c in so many patients signals an inadequate state of diabetes control and a warning about the quality of care being delivered.
Other presentations documented persistent gaps across the health system. A study of 420 postnatal mothers in Dodoma region found that only 32 percent had adequate uptake of postnatal care services and just 39.8 percent had adequate knowledge of them, though knowledge of maternal danger signs and of the postnatal care schedule were strongly associated with uptake. Among 467 post-caesarean mothers in Dodoma and Singida, 63 percent had good knowledge of essential home care, but 92.9 percent had poor knowledge of sexual and reproductive health care needs after surgery. A mixed-methods assessment of 20 health facilities in Dodoma found that only half had uninterrupted electricity, 55 percent had constant water supply, and only 40 percent had a functional ambulance, while availability of GeneXpert tuberculosis testing kits stood at just 25 percent. Hospital cleaners in Dodoma showed that only 14.1 percent had adequate knowledge of health care waste management and 2.4 percent had good practice, despite 70.6 percent holding positive attitudes.
The conference also surfaced findings on disease burden in specific populations. Among 293 adult stroke patients followed for twelve months at Dodoma referral hospitals, the incidence of post-stroke epileptic seizures was 6.85 percent, with a twelve-month prevalence of 25.26 percent, and diabetes, hemorrhagic stroke, larger hematoma or infarct volume and severe stroke scale scores were significant predictors. Among 131 children with cerebral palsy in Dodoma, urinary tract infection prevalence was 16.03 percent, with E. coli as the predominant pathogen showing high resistance to common antibiotics but remaining sensitive to ciprofloxacin, amikacin and meropenem. A study of 125 women delivering at Dodoma Regional Referral Hospital found that 24 percent had deranged serum ferritin and that both high and low ferritin values were independently associated with unfavorable maternal and fetal outcomes. Taken together, the abstracts portray a health system in transition, with genuine achievements in maternal survival, surgical capacity and infectious disease response running alongside measurable deficits in chronic disease management, service quality and equitable access that the conference organizers framed as the central challenge of the decade ahead.
Subject of Research: Research presentations from the first University of Dodoma scientific conference on health covering maternal and child health, non-communicable diseases, infectious diseases, kidney transplantation and health system strengthening in Tanzania
Article Title: Conference abstracts the 1st UDOM scientific conference on health: healthy lives and well-being for all: opportunities and challenges
Article References: Conference abstracts the 1st UDOM scientific conference on health: healthy lives and well-being for all: opportunities and challenges. (2026). BMC Proceedings, 20(22), 27. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12919-026-00380-6 (Author names are not included in the publisher’s citation export.)
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1186/s12919-026-00380-6
Keywords: Tanzania, University of Dodoma, maternal health, non-communicable diseases, kidney transplantation, bone marrow transplantation, diabetes, universal health coverage, COVID-19, health system strengthening, sickle cell disease, BMC Proceedings
News Source: Drew Townsend. (November 6, 2026). Tanzania’s first UDOM health conference maps progress and gaps from maternal care to kidney transplants. Scienmag.
