New members appointed to governance bodies of EDCTP
The EDCTP General Assembly formally approved the appointment of new members to the DCCC and the Partnership Board. The Developing Countries Coordinating Committee (DCCC), EDCTP’s independent advisory body of prominent African scientists and health professionals, welcomed Prof. Gita Ramjee as HIV focal person for Southern Africa, and Dr Abraham Aseffa as TB focal person for Eastern Africa. The Partnership Board, the independent scientific board that advises the General Assembly, saw also two new appointments: Professor Marie-Louise Newell and Dr Dawit Wolday. They bring considerable expertise in the areas of cross-cutting issues and HIV respectively. Their term of service is effective from beginning of 2012.
DCCC
Prof. Gita Ramjee of the Medical Research Council HIV Unit in Durban (South Africa) obtained her science degree at the University of Sunderland in the United Kingdom and her Masters and PhD through the Department of Paediatrics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. She has extensive experience in HIV prevention methods for women and has been investigating women-initiated HIV prevention options since the availability of the first candidate, nonoxynol-9, more than 15 years ago. More recently, she has been conducting large-scale trials of antiretroviral-based oral and topical prophylaxis.
Dr Abraham Aseffa graduated in medicine from the Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. He specialised in Medical Microbiology at the University of Leipzig in Germany where he did his dissertation on the development of an attenuated live vaccine against Listeria monocytogenes. Dr Aseffa has been working at the Armauer Hansen research Institute (AHRI) since 2001, and is currently AHRI’s Scientific Director. He has substantial experience in TB/HIV, leishmaniasis and infectious disease. Dr Aseffa is an active contributor to many professional associations and initiatives in Ethiopia and Africa. He has shown particular interest in capacity building efforts for health research and ethics.
Partnership Board
Marie-Louise Newell is Professor of Paediatric Epidemiology at University College London. Prof. Newell has been involved in research in developing countries throughout her career, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. She has a background in Medicine, Demography and Epidemiology, and has focussed her research on maternal and child health, particularly on infections (e.g. HIV, Hepatitis C Virus) in pregnant women and children. She is also a founding member and current co-Chair of the Ghent International AIDS Society (IAS) Working Group on MTCT of HIV and Co-Investigator of the Vertical Transmission Study based at the Africa Centre in Hlabisa.
Dr Dawit Wolday is the Executive Director of the Medical Biotech Laboratories (MBL) in Addis Ababa, and Associate Professor of the Medicine at College of Health Sciences-Mekelle University in Mekelle, Ethiopia. He obtained his MD from Gondar College of Medical Sciences, and his MSc in Medical Microbiology from the University of Addis Ababa, in Ethiopia, and his PhD in immunology from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. Dr Wolday has almost two decades of research experience in the fields of HIV/AIDS and Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), including leishmaniasis and soil-transmitted helminths (STHs), and to some extent tuberculosis and malaria. He is currently working in the areas of affordable laboratory diagnostics and laboratory infrastructure capacity building in resource-constrained settings.