The Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine celebrates its 60th Anniversary in 2010. It has produced almost 3000 Black-African doctors and trained hundreds of students of all races to specialist status. It has survived despite controversy and political harassment. From rocky beginnings founded on the inhospitable grounds of apartheid, through years of harassment at the hands of a hostile Government, the Medical School has grown to a point where it has finally been able to take its place as an esteemed institution in society.
Now, free of the political baggage that has dogged its existence, and one of five vibrant campuses of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, it stands on the threshold of a new millennium and exciting new beginnings, ready and eager to enhance and expand its commitment to improving the health care of South Africa.
During the last ten years, the Faculty has greatly increased its research capacity. In 2003, the Doris Duke Research Institute was opened and its 14 specialist laboratories, which include a level P3 laboratory, have allowed the Faculty to become a major player in HIV and Tuberculosis research. Currently, a new research facility, the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV, funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at a cost of R600 million is in the planning phases, and will make provision for the highest level of laboratories for the devastating co-epidemic of tuberculosis and HIV research in the southern hemisphere. Another first for the province of KwaZulu-Natal and part of the Medical School is the Traditional Medicine Laboratory, currently in the construction phase, co-funded by the Department of Science and technology and the Ibn Sina Institute of Tibb (South Africa) aimed at fostering collaboration between scientists, traditional healers and medical practitioners to study the medicinal properties, safety and effectiveness of several African plants.
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