University of Malta–Mauritius exchange advances public health collaboration

Earlier this month, Prof. Neville Calleja, Head of the Department of Public Health within the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, visited the University of Mauritius as part of an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility (ICM) grant linking the two universities, kindly hosted, organised and facilitated by fellow lecturer Muzzammil Hosenally. The visit included teaching sessions delivered to undergraduate and postgraduate students at the University of Mauritius as part of their statistics module, coordinated by Muzzammil Hosenally and drawing on curriculum material developed for the University of Malta's MSc in Public Health programme. The postgraduate group was actually reading for an MSc as part of a continued professional development programme run in collaboration between the University of Mauritius and Statistics Mauritius.

The sessions covered core public health themes — including the social determinants of health, health inequalities, and gender differences in health outcomes — contextualised for a small island setting. Both Malta and Mauritius share characteristics that make comparative perspectives particularly instructive: similar population sizes, geographically bounded health systems, limited specialist workforce depth, and the ongoing challenge of balancing local epidemiological realities against internationally developed frameworks and guidelines.

"Small island states face a distinct set of public health challenges that are often underrepresented in mainstream teaching material," said Prof. Calleja. "This exchange offered an opportunity to engage with students in a context where those challenges are felt just as acutely as they are in Malta — and to learn from each other."

The Erasmus+ ICM mechanism, which supports academic mobility between European higher education institutions and partner countries worldwide, has enabled staff and student exchanges between the University of Malta and the University of Mauritius. This visit forms part of a broader, ongoing collaboration between the two institutions.

Prof. Calleja also leads Malta's WHO Collaborating Centre on Health Systems and Policies in Small States (MAT-2), whose mandate includes strengthening health systems research and capacity in small-country contexts — a theme that ran through the teaching delivered in Mauritius.

During the visit, Prof. Calleja took the opportunity to meet with both Prof. Fawzi Mahomoodally, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences and Prof. Verena Tandrayen-Ragoobur, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, to discuss opportunities for the future. The latter Dean had kindly facilitated the faculty exchange between Muzzammil Hosenally and me. The collaboration is expected to continue, with further staff and student mobility planned under the existing ICM agreement, thanks to the excellent facilitation by the respective International Offices of both Universities.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the University of Malta. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.