Prof Christopher Wood - a well-known name in all of East Africa and beyond with an unparalleled reputation as a community health practitioner. Many of our health personnel in this region developed under his hands in his role as a teacher, mentor, external examiner, and public health consultant.
Prof Wood qualified as a medical doctor at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, London in1947. He obtained a Diploma in Public Health and a Diploma in Industrial Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine 1952-53, and an MS in Hygiene (1955-57) and at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Chris Wood's decision to go into public health was influenced when as a medical student, he spent his vacations working in a coal mine. There he saw the advantages of preventing accidents and chronic pulmonary diseases underground as opposed to providing casualty services and compensation at ground level. After his National Service in 1947-49, he spent short-term spells working at a mission hospital in Assam; a private surgical practice in Nairobi, Kenya; and hospitals in Malaya, India, Sri Lanka, Uganda, and Nigeria. This encounter with different health systems changed his thinking from surgery to preventive medicine.
On return to the UK, Prof Wood was recruited to start the new Department of Occupational Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where he developed courses in occupational health. He played a prominent role in anti-smoking - campaign, starting the first anti-smoking clinic in England, kicked off by the Royal College of Physicians' Report on Smoking and Health. In 1961 he was involved in setting up a fundraising office for AMREF, (the African Medical and Research Foundation) in London.
In 1963 Chris, was invited to Tanganyika by the Government as Public Health Advisor to set up the training program at the Dar es Salaam Medical School, which was established within the Ministry of Health. When the Dar es Salaam Medical School was incorporated into the University of East Africa as a fully fledged Faculty of Medicine under its constituent college in Dar-es-Salaam, Chris became the founding Professor of Community Health.
In 1973, Chris moved to Nairobi, Kenya to establish the training department of AMREF. Through his emphasis on continuing education for all rural health workers (most of whom are in the auxiliary cadres), he established a program to develop and distribute appropriate learning materials, and training of teachers. Training soon became an important component of AMREF's operations, offering a range of short courses for various levels of the health workforce, and a year-long diploma course in community health. The training department also nurtured a variety of community health activities such as the primary health care program for South Sudan, community health worker support unit, environmental health activities.
In 1985, Chris became AMREF's Director General. During his tenure he established two new departments; Health Planning and Management, and Publications. A new strategic plan was developed in cooperation with the East African Ministries of Health and major donors. Chris was a founder member and served on the Board of The Nairobi Hospice. He was a Council Member of the Tropical Institute of Community Health/University of the Great Lakes.. He was also founder and Chairman of the Executive Board of AfriAfya. AfriAfya (for African Health) is a health knowledge management and communication organisation closely affiliated to AMREF. Another initiative of his was the developement of a "phased training" program for middle level health workers for the Southern Sudan war zone that has now become the backbone for the region's reconstruction of its health services. Chris Wood began an environmental program for saving trees by making cooking fuel out of dry leaves and waste paper in the form of compressed briquettes that can be used in place of charcoal.
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