Current Projects
HIV & Sexual Health
With support from the Link, we have developed a sustainable education and research partnership between collaborators from the UK (BSMS, University of Sussex), and institutions associated with Sexual Health and HIV clinical care in Zambia including the University of Zambia and the Zambian Medical Association, and the Centre for Infectious Diseases Research (CIDRZ).
The partnership has successfully attracted funding from the UK (BMA charitable funds) to deliver an educational course on Sexual Health and HIV for health care workers in Lusaka, that aims to increase capacity to conduct research in Lusaka by providing education and training to health care workers and Zambian researchers in the management of STIs and HIV.
This course, developed in association with the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH), and was delivered in 2017. The University of Zambia and the Zambian Medical Association are already collaborating with BSMS in projects addressing Sexual Health problems in Lusaka, and other Zambian provinces. Zambian collaborators include Dr Owen Ngalamika, Consultant Dermatovenereologist, Head of the Skin and STI Clinic at the Lusaka UTH, and Dr Aaron Mujajati, the president of the Zambian Medical Association who has links with government officials, at the Zambian Ministry of Health, and whose contribution will be essential to advance health policy in Sexual Health in Zambia.
With support from the Link Dr Owen Ngalamika visited Brighton in 2017 as part of a knowledge exchange initiative supported by the charity.
Previous articles
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News
In April 2020 Dr Jaime Vera, Senior Lecturer in HIV Medicine, was awarded a grant for a new project, 'The challenge of ageing with HIV in Africa: developing capability, partnerships and research in ageing and HIV in Zambia'. The number of people ageing with HIV in Sub Saharan Africa is increasing as a result of improved access to antiretroviral therapy. In high income settings ageing people living with HIV have disproportionately high incidence of major non-communicable diseases and reduced health-related quality of life. Evidence of this situation happening in Zambia is lacking. This proposal aims to establish a multidisciplinary research partnership to increase research capacity and capability in ageing and HIV in Zambia. Jaime has been awarded more than £19k by the University of Sussex's International Development Challenge Fund and Sussex Sustainability Research Programme for this project. Jaime has also been involved with the development of digital vending machine technology for the distribution of HIV self-testing kits to key communities affected by HIV in high and low-income settings, including Lusaka.
Neonatology
The majority of newborn babies require minimal intervention at birth to establish normal breathing and transition to life outside the womb. However, on a global scale, many babies still die during labour or shortly after birth. Many of these deaths are easily preventable if trained health care workers attend the birth. The University Teaching Hospital (UTH) in Lusaka is the largest hospital and main referral health institution in Zambia. It has a busy delivery suite with a rate of around 60 births per day and approximately 20,000-25,000 deliveries per year. Faith Kayembe, originally from Zambia, is a Senior Lecturer in midwifery at Canterbury Christchurch University in Kent. Faith got in touch with us to see whether her skills and knowledge could be applied through the Link to help improve care for newborns in Zambia. Working with her colleagues in Lusaka, Faith identified a number of challenges, including low levels of clinical specialisation and a lack of continuing professional knowledge and skill development opportunities for Zambian midwives. She developed a bespoke programme that aimed to build capacity by training key staff to deliver rolling training in newborn resuscitation. Faith went to Lusaka to set up the programme.
Over 40 staff who attend deliveries received training and a core group of facilitators were also trained to deliver the training to ensure a sustainable programme.
In another newborn project, Professor Heike Rabe, a consultant neonatologist working in Brighton, has developed a new collaboration with the Medical School in Lusaka and other international partners. Called MODERN (Mother Driven Best Practice Implementation), this project is testing new mother and baby-focused, digital intervention strategies to increase access to, and implementation of, evidence-based quality care during and after pregnancy. The project will support the broader implementation of World Health Organisation care pathway recommendations for care before, during and after birth reducing mothers’ and babies’ deaths. Watch this space for further updates as this project develops.
Find out more about Prof Rabe’s research here >
Ongoing Projects/Grants
New-born babies' hospital care to be enhanced >
Advanced paediatric life skills
Around sixty children out of every 1,000 live births die before their 5th birthday in Zambia. These rates are much better than they were a decade ago but still high compared to the UK (around 4 per 1000 live births). Many of these deaths could have been prevented if the right treatment was given sooner (e.g. fluids for dehydration or antibiotics for severe pneumonia). An audit at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) in Lusaka found that two thirds of childhood deaths occurred within the first two days of admission. Whilst there are often delays getting to hospital (families may live far from the hospital and not be able to afford transport, for example) consultant paediatrician at UTH Dr Somwe Wasomwe wondered whether better care at the time of admission might improve outcomes and save lives. He and colleagues noted that nurses who looked after sick children were not trained to look after children and many had lost their skills once they qualified due to a lack of ongoing training. One of the results of these observations was the development of the diploma of paediatric nursing. The other was to develop training in advanced paediatric life support (APLS). Dr Wasomwe and Professor Paul Seddon, a paediatrician at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in Brighton, were already working together and started working on this idea. They successfully applied for funding from the THET Partnership scheme and were able to get a team of APLS trainers from the UK and from South Africa together in Lusaka to develop the programme. The courses were aimed at health care professionals who looked after very sick children at admission and enabled them to resuscitate and treat very sick children soon after arrival at UTH. A number of more senior practitioners were identified and trained to ruin the APLS course such that the programme was sustainable and continues to run new and refresher courses.
Pharmacy
In April 2016 a team of six pharmacists from Brighton were invited to visit colleagues at University Teaching Hospital (UTH) Department of Pharmacy and also the University of Zambia Department of Pharmacy. The main aim of this visit was to develop partnerships and collaboration towards enhancing the quality of pharmacy practice and education bilaterally. A number of areas were identified which had potential for development of partnerships and collaborative projects. This visit was reciprocated in the autumn of 2017 when a team of pharmacists from UTH visited Brighton to develop joint activities around knowledge-sharing and best practice in both the practice of pharmacy as well as education. The role of the pharmacist tackling anti-microbial resistance is a particular focus of the group. Many germs that cause serious infections have become resistant to the antibiotics used to treat them (called antimicrobial resistance or AMR) and this is a major global problem. Many factors contribute to AMR and its spread around the world, one of which is the inappropriate use of antibiotics. Pharmacists are in a key position to have impact here and the Brighton Lusaka Pharmacy Link is focusing on ways to reduce the overuse of antibiotics in hospital settings, both in Zambia and the UK, and on capacity building amongst healthcare professionals.
News
The Commonwealth Pharmacists Association announces the launch of a training video to support local pharmacy teams in the production of World Health Organisation formula alcohol-based hand sanitiser >
Recent article and projects
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