Karima Khalid

Karima Khalid is a Lecturer, researcher, and senior consultant in anaesthesiology and critical care at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences and Muhimbili Orthopaedic Institute in Tanzania. With over 15 years of experience, she is recognized as a leading critical care expert in Tanzania and is actively engaged in capacity building and educational projects.

Dr. Khalid's research focuses on critical care systems in resource-limited settings, with particular emphasis on essential emergency and critical care (EECC). Her work addresses the significant gaps in critical care provision across African hospitals, where critically ill patients often receive inadequate treatment in general wards rather than specialized intensive care units.

She serves in the WFSA's Critical Care Committee and CANECSA's Education and Scientific Committee and is one of the regional directors of VAST. Currently, she is leading the UNICEF-supported implementation of EECC in Tanzania, aiming to improve critical care services across the country.

Dr. Khalid co-authored the groundbreaking African Critical Illness Outcomes Study published in The Lancet (2025), which examined 20,000 patients across 180 hospitals in 22 African countries, revealing that 12.5% of hospital inpatients were critically ill, 69% of critically ill patients were treated in general wards, and critically ill patients were eight times more likely to die in hospital than other patients.

As a board member of EECC Global, she advocates for integrating essential emergency and critical care into universal health coverage policies and health benefit packages across Africa, emphasizing the urgent need for basic life-saving interventions like oxygen therapy and fluid resuscitation in general hospital wards to reduce preventable deaths from conditions such as pneumonia, sepsis, and trauma.