In August, researchers from the Uganda-CWRU Research Collaboration in Kampala, Uganda, hosted a group of six health policy advisors and counsel or legislative aides for six U.S. senators, including the office of Sen. Robert Portman from Ohio, and representatives from the Global Health Technologies Coalition and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative during a visit to learn about the impact of U.S. funding for global health research.
The group visited the collaboration’s TB Project Clinic at Mulago Hospital, where they were briefed about the collaboration’s 31 years of TB and TB+HIV epidemiologic studies and clinical trials, toured the clinic, and met with representatives from the local TB Community Research Advisory Group and patients from several of the Collaboration’s TB studies.
Mayanja Kizza (CWRU ’98) and Dean Moses Joloba (CWRU ’96, ‘03), both adjunct faculty members at the School of Medicine, led the visit and gave brief presentations highlighting several key earlier clinical trials and their impact on TB prevention and treatment.
Grace Muzanyi concluded with a brief presentation about TB Trials Consortium/ACTG A 5349, a large international study of new regimens to shorten treatment from six to four months for adolescents and adults with pulmonary TB.
A Q&A and discussion was held at the end of the visit.
The visitors commented on the outputs from the research, the quality at which it has been conducted and their interactions with the community TB group and former patients. The visit allowed the collaboration to have the opportunity to inform U.S. government leadership about our TB and TB+HIV research.