Maternal, Newborn, and Adolescent Health

Christine Musyimi of Africa Mental Health Foundation in Kenya will aim at reducing Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) among pregnant women through anger management strategies, delivered via mobile phones to potential IPV perpetrators (PIP) in rural Kenya, where resources of mental health specialists are limited.

Jo-Ann Passmore, Associate Professor of the University of Cape Town in South Africa, will pilot the formation of the vaginal microbiome research consortium in Africa (VMRC4Africa) by establishing a network of researchers and centers of excellence for conducting research and clinical trials to promote women’s health across the continent. Dr. Passmore uses immune biomarkers and microbial-based approaches to study HIV and HPV pathogenesis and prevention in African women.

Moses Obimbo Madadi, Clinician-Scientist and Associate Professor at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, will form a coalition of researchers and develop tools to study the vaginal microbiome and metabolites during pregnancy to help identify predictive biomarkers and intervention strategies for improving pregnancy outcomes in Kenya. Africa carries a high burden of severe pregnancy complications such as stillbirths and neonatal deaths. To address this, Dr.

Annettee Nakimuli, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Dean of the School of Medicine at Makerere University in Uganda, will identify predictors of adverse pregnancy outcomes in Ugandan women with a focus on Great Obstetrical Syndromes (GOS), such as pre-eclampsia, to help develop context-relevant interventions for prevention and treatment. Dr. Nakimuli is an internationally-recognized research leader in maternal health for Africa.

Mainga Hamaluba, Head of Clinical Research at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Kenya, will develop a pragmatic adaptive trial platform to evaluate key interventions for improving child survival in East Africa in real-life routine practice conditions as a faster and lower-cost alternative to traditional randomized controlled trials. Dr. Hamaluba has led a wide-range of complex clinical trials, including oversight of a complement of COVID-19 prevention and vaccine trials.

Danielle Ehret of the Vermont Oxford Network in the U.S. in collaboration with Krista Donaldson of Equalize Health also in the U.S. and Mahlet Abayneh of the Ethiopian Pediatrics Society, will develop a web-based clinical training course to train staff in neonatal intensive care units in Ethiopia to better recognize respiratory distress syndrome in preterm infants, and to safely deliver continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) to reduce mortality rates. Respiratory distress syndrome causes almost half of all preterm deaths in neonatal units in Ethiopia.

Jesse Gitaka of Mount Kenya University in Kenya in collaboration with David Anderson of Burnet Institute in Australia, will develop a diagnostic device for iron deficiency anemia that is suitable for resource-limited settings. Iron deficiency anemia can cause maternal death, prematurity and stunting. Current diagnostic tests require expensive equipment or are not specific enough to distinguish between the different causes of anemia. They will develop a device that detects the low levels of hemoglobin found in immature red blood cells, called reticulocytes.

Mary Glover-Amengor of the Food Research Institute in Ghana will investigate whether drinking soymilk-burkina, a Ghanaian indigenous fermented milk and millet beverage (smoothie), improves the nutritional status and gut health of women of reproductive age living in the Volta and Oti regions of Ghana. They will produce the soymilk-burkina and test it for bacterial and fungal content and consumer acceptability.

Manoja Kumar Das of the INCLEN Trust International in India will determine the optimal dose of traditional fermented rice-water (pakhala/torani) to improve the nutritional status and the gut and vaginal microbiomes in women of reproductive age in Odisha, India, to promote maternal health. They will provide different rice types and fermentation protocols for households to prepare torani and also prepare it in the laboratory and evaluate its stability and nutritional and microbial content.

Heather Jaspan of the University of Cape Town in South Africa will conduct a randomized controlled trial of post-partum South African mothers to determine whether unpasteurized mageu is more nutritious and promotes a healthier gut microbiome than pasteurized mageu, which is more commonly consumed. Mageu is a common grain-based fermented porridge used as a weaning food in infants and as an energy drink in adults. It is generally produced in pasteurized form, which may inactive the live bacteria that can boost health.