The KEMRI|Wellcome Trust Research Programme is a world renowned health research unit of excellence. The programme was formed in 1989 when the Kenya Medical Research Institute formed a partnership with the Wellcome Trust and the University of Oxford. The Programme has over the last 26 years grown from a small group of 12 to a state of the art facility hosting over 100 research scientists and 700 support staff working across Kenya, Uganda and the region. We have over the years excelled in use of novel ideas working with local community’s to achieve better health for Africa while also developing African scientific leaders.
Conducting seminal intervention trials against malaria that have fed directly into national and international policy which has contributed to the prevention of millions of deaths; these include trials of impregnated bed nets, the prevention of malaria in pregnant women, interventions to improve community based treatment and interventions to increase access to safe effective drugs.
Developing new approaches to mapping and estimating the burden of malaria and other diseases in Kenya, Africa and globally and making it openly available for policy makers and researchers.
Developing new approaches to building scientific capacity and leadership in Kenya and the region by attracting the brightest graduates as masters and PhD students and providing the infrastructure for them to develop their careers as researchers. Researchers trained though the programme have won international recognition and gone on to lead research groups in many institutions in Kenya and the region.
Conducting cutting edge research to better understand immunity to malaria, bacterial and viral diseases. This feeds in to our participation in large trials of a range of new vaccines to protect children from some of the most important causes of disease and death.
Developing new approaches to community engagement and understanding the ethical dimensions of working in vulnerable communities which have been widely influential in international health research.
Establishing a unique long term picture of population health in Kilifi County through a platform that links clinical events with high quality laboratory data and demographic surveillance of a population of nearly 300,000. These approaches have been extended with colleagues across Africa to understand not only the major causes of acute illness but the long term effects on children’s development.
Developing a focus on the sick child, which has provided a new understanding of how different bacterial, parasitic and viral infections interact with host factors such as nutrition and genetic factors. This has led to large scale intervention trials to improve the treatment of sick children and country wide work to understand how best to improve service delivery in the Kenyan health system
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