Mwanza-Tanzania Research Training program in HIV Clinical investigation
5-year project from 2021 to 2026
The current project we are doing is called Mwanza-Tanzania Research Training program in HIV Clinical investigation and is in collaboration with Weill-Cornell Medical College, Mwanza Intervention Trials Unit (MITU), Tanzania National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Weill Bugando School of Medicine.This is a 5-year project from 2021 to 2026 and the grant for the project was awarded, supported and administered by the Fogarty International Center at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Project brief description
The objective of this training program is to increase the number of Tanzania physician scientists with rigorous training in
patient-oriented HIV clinical investigation. Mwanza Intervention Trials Unit (MITU) and Weill Bugando will establish courses in clinical investigation, advanced biostatistics, and epidemiology to be offered in Mwanza and 15 long-term trainees will
conduct mentored research in one of the following HIV research priority areas:
- HIV prevention and vaccine research.
- Implementation of HIV testing and treatment
- Women’s health
- Management of HIV related opportunistic infections and cardiovascular disease
The goal is to establish MITU/Weill Bugando as a training hub for HIV clinical investigation in East Africa.
Further details of the project are available here at NIH website RePORTER: READ MORE
Smart Discharges: A cohort study to develop and validate prognostic algorithms for post-discharge mortality among children under 16 years of age
Introduction
Smart Discharges is a digital health research program aiming to improve pediatric post-discharge health outcomes by identifying at-risk children using scientifically rigorous, data-driven prediction models and mitigating risk through health education and post-discharge follow-up referrals.
In many African countries, pediatric post-discharge mortality following in-hospital treatment for severe infectious illness is higher than in-hospital mortality (5-8%). Risk algorithms can be used to help health workers identify those most vulnerable to poor post-discharge outcomes. They can also assist health workers in providing personalized discharge counselling and recommending effective follow-up care. This can improve overall system efficiency. While this approach has shown promise among children under 5 years of age in Uganda, no research has addressed issues of post-discharge morbidity and mortality among children over 5 years of age. Moreover, existing algorithms to predict mortality among children under 5 years of age must be validated in the Tanzanian context.