The 1987 plan

As we have seen, at the international donors conference in Kampala in May 1987 the European Commission agreed to provide assistance to the Ministry of Health to rehabilitate the blood bank and to provide supplies for up to 10,000 units of blood annually for three years in keeping with the recommendations made by Dr Fransen in her report. The EC saw this project as compatible with the comparative advantages it had in promoting AIDS work, because it was in a position to adopt medium-term rather than short-term strategies and support larger projects rather than the smaller educational or community-based projects which other donors were better placed to carry out.

A grant was approved and a work plan developed. The plan provided 1.3 million ECU to rebuild and equip the blood bank, 0.3 million ECU for emergency equipment and supplies, 0.3 million ECU for technical assistance, and 0.5 million ECU for supplies to provide service until December 1990, when it was expected that Nakasero would reach its target for blood collection.

For its part, the Ministry of Health, working with the then EC Delegate to Uganda, developed plans for the reconstruction of the building and appointed Messrs Peatfield and Bodgener as consultant architects. Ministry responsibility was exercised through the AIDS Control Programme, directed by Dr. Sam Okware and advised by Dr. Peter Kataaha, then consultant immunologist in the Department of Paediatrics at Makerere University.