Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Institutional Review Board of College of Medicine and Heath Sciences: Establishment and current status Bahir Dar University envisioned being among the top ten premier research Universities in Africa. Cognizant of this, there is a rapidly growing focus on research training and practice with increasing needs for operational and biomedical research. Established in 2007 as the College of Medicine and Health Sciences it envisaged to enhance the effort to build the trained human resource in the country. The College has large number of staff with growing numbers over time who is engaged in scientific research. The College leads in the annual research outputs of Bahir Dar University. The National Guideline for Health Research Ethics Review emphasizes that there needs to be Institutional Review Boards (IRB’s) organized as IRB-A and IRB-B with detailed operational guidelines to facilitate the ethical clearance and monitoring the conduct of studies as per protocol. The emergence of mega-research projects of cohort and experimental nature in many Universities carry serious human subject ethical concerns and need stringent review and stronger follow-up for proper ethical practice. With the establishment of the Demographic and Health Surveillance Center, the College also expects a growing number of studies in both community and clinical settings that need harmonization of clinical care with research requiring closer support of IRB. The expansion of the clinical post-graduate programs and initiation of a Public Health PhD in the College of Medicine means there will be research projects over years. Monitoring such researches will be difficult in the absence of a certified, strong IRB. To verify that the above issues are comprehensively addressed, the College of Medicine and Health Sciences established an IRB in May 2017 that has 11 members comprised of different disciplines (Clinical Medicine, Public Health, Pharmacy, Mental Health, Nursing, Midwifery, and Microbiology). The IRB has a chair and secretary. The IRB has developed standard operating procedures (SOPs) of IRB of CMHS in order to review research protocols according to internationally accepted criteria and steps. It has been mainly adapted from the Forum for Ethics Review Committees in Asia and the Western Pacific (FERCAP) guideline that was accessed at http://www.fercap-sidcer.org. Prior to this, the IRB had an experience sharing from Addis Ababa University College of Health Sciences IRB. The IRB members were trained on research ethics and preparation of SOPs in June 2017 by international trainers. It has developed the required documentation procedures in the ethical review process. The first protocol review was conducted on October 10 2017.

Contact CMHS

College Of Medicine and Health Sciences

Bahir Dar University

 Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

Phone:- +251-0582-9 99275

P.o.box:- 79

e-mail:- collegehealthscience@gmail.com

Institutes

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