Clinical Research

Bio

Charles was born in Kenya, qualified in Cape Town, South Africa, with postgraduate training in Paediatrics in Manchester and London, United Kingdom. As a lecturer at University of Oxford, he returned to Kilifi Kenya in 1989, to help set up an unit to study severe malaria in African children. Thereafter he spent 2 years as a Post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins, USA; studying mechanisms of brain damage in central nervous system infections. He completed his training in Paediatric Neurology at Great Ormond Street Hospital, UK. In 1998 he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellowship at University College London, to return to Kilifi, to study CNS infections in children. He has published on a wide variety of subjects concerning sick children in tropical countries. In 2011 he took up a professorship in Psychiatry at the University of Oxford to concentrate of neurological and mental illness disorders in children living in Africa.

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Current Work

He conducts research on CNS infections in children; epidemiological studies of epilepsy and neurological impairment; tetanus, jaundice and sepsis in neonates. At present he is conducting studies of Autism and Epilepsy in Africa and working on sickle cell disease in Tanzania.

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Recent publications

Impact of co-morbid common mental disorder symptoms in people with epilepsy in Ethiopia on quality of life and functional disability: a cohort study.
Tsigebrhan, R., Medhin, G., Belina, M., Newton, C. R., Hanlon, C.
Glob Ment Health (Camb), (2025). 12:e33

Author Response: Multipsychiatric Comorbidity in People With Epilepsy Compared With People Without Epilepsy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Kwon, C. S., Newton, C. R., Jette, N.
Neurology, (2025). 104:e209942

A multifaceted intervention to improve diagnosis and early management of hospitalised patients with suspected acute brain infections in Brazil, India, and Malawi: an international multicentre intervention study.
Singh, B., Lipunga, G. D., Thangavelu, P., Dhar, S., Ferreira Cronemberger, L., Abhilash, K. P. P., Abraham, A. M., de Brito, C. A. A., Brito Ferreira, M. L., Chandrashekar, N., Duarte, R., Fajardo Modol, A., Ghale, B. C., Kang, G., Gowda, V. K., Kuriakose, K., Lant, S., Mallewa, M., Mbale, E., Moore, S. C., Mwangalika, G., Kamath, P. B. T., Navvuga, P., Nyondo-Mipando, A. L., Phiri, T. J., Pimentel Lopes de Melo, C., Pradeep, B. S., Rawlinson, R., Sheha, I., Thomas, P. T., Newton, C. R., de Sequeira, P. C., Sejvar, J. J., Dua, T., Turtle, L., Verghese, V. P., Arraes, Lwms, Desmond, N., Easton, A., Jones, J. A., Lilford, R. J., Netravathi, M., McGill, F., Michael, B. D., Mwapasa, V., Griffiths, M. J., Parry, C. M., Ravi, V., Burnside, G., Cornick, J., França, R. F. O., Desai, A. S., Rupali, P., Solomon, T.
Lancet, (2025). :

Epilepsy in low- to middle-income countries.
Sen, A., Newton, C. R., Ngwende, G.
Curr Opin Neurol, (2025). :

Modeling the determinants of attrition in a two-stage epilepsy prevalence survey in Nairobi using machine learning.
Mwanga, D. M., Kipchirchir, I. C., Muhua, G. O., Newton, C. R., Kadengye, D. T.
Glob Epidemiol, (2025). 9:100183