HIV
June 28, 2019
Dr. Jillian Pintye named WGHA 2019 Pioneer Rising Leader
Congratulations to Dr. Jillian Pintye (Acting Assistant Professor, Global Health), who is the Washington Global Health Alliance’s (WGHA) 2019 Global Health Pioneers Rising Leader!
Dr. Pintye is focused on preventing HIV in pregnant women, who often don’t know their HIV risk and who may be more susceptible to getting infected during pregnancy. Dr. Pintye led groundbreaking research to show that PrEP, an HIV prevention medicine, is safe to use during pregnancy. She didn’t stop with epidemiologic analyses, though. Equipped with the research, Dr. Pintye then partnered with Dr. John Kinuthia and his team in Kenya to develop and implement an innovative PrEP program in nearly 40 clinics. The program builds on existing clinics, reaches existing patients, and to date has screened more than 20,000 women, with close to 4,000 of them initiating PrEP. (more…)
June 7, 2019
Dr. Sarah Benki-Nugent and Kenya Healthy Brain Project receives EDGE Pilot Award for environmental health research
Categories: Awards, Children, HIV, Research
Environmental exposures in sub-Saharan Africa have received little attention despite data suggesting high levels of air pollutants and metals. Environmental pollutants are harmful to infants’ developing brains and may lead to poor neurocognitive outcomes into adolescence and adulthood. Dr. Sarah Benki-Nugent (Department of Global Health) is leading the newly launched Kenya Healthy Brain Project, a multi-disciplinary maternal-child environmental health research collaborative housed in the University of Nairobi that aims to build local research capacity, with the idea of moving research into policy practice to reduce exposures that threaten cognitive potential in children. (more…)
May 29, 2019
Dr. Irene Njuguna awarded 2019 CFAR Mentored International Investigator Award to improve adolescent and young adult health in Kenya
Categories: Awards, HIV, HIV and Co-Infections, Research
Congratulations to Dr. Irene Njuguna (PhD Candidate in UW Epidemiology; Infectious Disease Researcher, Kenyatta National Hospital) who is the recipient of the 2019 UW/Fred Hutch Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) Mentored International Investigator Award! Dr. Njuguna’s new two-year project entitled, “Causes and risk factors for death in HIV positive adolescents and youth in Kenya,” aims to fill critical gaps in understanding cause-specific and underlying contributing factors to adolescent and young adult (AYA) deaths. Despite improvements in recent years to link HIV positive AYA to treatment and management to keep viral loads low, they remain at high risk of dying for reasons not well documented at many low-resource health facilities. (more…)
April 24, 2019
Can community pharmacies in Kenya improve early access to antenatal and HIV prevention care? Dr. Melissa Mugambi awarded NIH Diversity Award to explore feasibility
Categories: Awards, Family Planning, HIV, Research
In setting with high HIV prevalence, early antenatal care (ANC) visits are vital to optimize HIV testing and prevention services to reduce maternal and pediatric mortality and morbidity. Late ANC attendance limits timely identification and delivery of HIV prevention services including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among pregnant women at high risk for HIV infection. To fill this gap, researchers are looking for ways to encourage pregnant women to seek ANC early and improve maternal and child health outcomes. In Kenya, community pharmacies, also known as drug shops or chemists, are playing an increasingly important role as sources of over-the-counter sexual and reproductive health products, including urine pregnancy tests and HIV self-testing kits. These pharmacies offer important and under-utilized access points to ANC and HIV prevention care for women and have the potential to inform a new innovative PrEP delivery model.
Dr. Melissa Mugambi (Assistant Professor, Department of Global Health, Implementation Science Program) received a National Institutes for Health (NIH) Diversity Supplement Award to lead a study on the feasibility of engaging community pharmacy providers in the distribution of pregnancy tests and subsequent referral of pregnant women to ANC, in order to promote early access to ANC and PrEP. (more…)
March 11, 2019
Global WACh Researchers Share Latest Science at CROI 2019
Categories: Conferences, HIV, Research
Last week, Global WACh researchers participated in the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) held in Seattle from March 5-7, 2019. The annual conference brings together top basic, translational, and clinical researchers from around the world to share the latest studies, important developments, and best research methods in the ongoing battle against HIV/AIDS and related infectious diseases. Our researchers shared their latest findings on testing for HIV, human papillomavirus (HPV), tuberculosis (TB), and on PrEP delivery practices. Continue reading for highlights and a list of accepted posters by Global WACh researchers. (more…)
March 7, 2019
ATTACH Team Shares Findings at the Inter-CFAR Sub-Saharan Africa Symposium 2019
Categories: Conferences, HIV, Research, Youth
Global WACh’s ATTACH team shared scientific findings at the annual Inter-CFAR Sub-Saharan Africa Symposium from January 31st to February 2nd, 2019 in Nairobi, Kenya. The annual symposium incorporates career development activities targeted to the needs of early career investigators, hold keynote talks addressing scientific topics of interest for African HIV research, and identify novel future research directions. The team’s research posters generated a lot of interest in how adolescents transition from pediatric to adult HIV care, and opportunities to discuss overcoming challenges. (more…)
February 7, 2019
New R01 grant to discover immune mechanism responses in HIV and TB co-infected children in Kenya
Dr. Grace John-Stewart, MD, PhD
Dr. Cheryl Day, PhD
Principal Investigators, Drs. Grace John-Stewart (Global WACh Director; Professor, Global Health, Epidemiology, Medicine, and Pediatrics) and Cheryl Day (Assistant Professor, Emory University School of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology) received a NIH/NIAID R01 award that supports research to discover changes in immune mechanisms and markers of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the pathogenic bacteria that causes tuberculosis (TB), in children exposed to or infected with HIV. As the number of TB cases rise in parallel to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in developing countries, there is an urgent need to understand the complex biological interaction between Mtb and HIV, particularly children with immune systems weakened by HIV. The World Health Organization estimates that there are over one million new cases of TB and 239,000 TB-related deaths every year. (more…)
February 6, 2019
Drs. Anjuli Wagner, Irene Njuguna receive CFAR Int’l Pilot Award to engage hard-to-reach adolescents via WhatsApp
Drs. Anjuli Wagner, PhD (left) and Irene Njuguna, PhDc (right)
Congratulations Drs. Anjuli Wagner (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Global Health) and Irene Njuguna (PhDc Epidemiology; Infectious disease researcher, Kenyatta National Hospital)! They received a CFAR International Pilot Award for their project entitled, “WhatsApp focus group and respondent-driven sampling: novel approaches to engage diverse adolescents,” which aims to test new technology-based approaches to engage adolescents who do not typically seek HIV preventative and treatment services. This one year project will take place in Nairobi, Kenya in collaboration with Kenyatta National Hospital. (more…)
December 3, 2018
Global WACh Shares Novel Research Findings at International Conferences
Categories: Conferences, Gut Health and Child Survival, HIV, Research
Over Fall quarter, Global WACh researchers shared novel research findings from our three scientific priority areas (HIV Through the Lifecycle, Family Planning and Decision Support, and Gut Health and Child Survival) at several international conferences: The HIV Prevention for HIV Conference (HIVR4P), Union World Conference on Lung Health, and American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene (ASTMH). Continue reading for conference highlights and photos! (more…)
September 20, 2018
ATTACH study hosts a workshop to strategize improving pediatric to adult HIV care transition
Categories: HIV
This week, the “Transitioning from Pediatric to Adult HIV Care in Kenya (ATTACH)” study team held a workshop in Nairobi, Kenya to discuss strategies to improve transition of adolescents into adult HIV care. Dr. Kristin Beima-Sofie, Global WACh co-investigator for ATTACH, traveled to Kenya with UW student researchers, Dr. Irene Njuguna (Infectious Disease Researcher from Kenyatta National Hospital in Kenya; current Epidemiology PhD student) and Danae Black (Epidemiology PhD Student). Participants also included members from Kenya National AIDS and STD Control Programme (NASCOP), a unit established in 1987 to lead the Kenya Ministry of Health’s interventions in the fight against HIV and AIDS. The multi-day workshop provided a forum for thoughtful, energizing conversations on ways to collaborate on this important issue. (more…)
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