Uganda - FEND-TB

Makerere University, located in Kampala, Uganda, has been involved in international collaborative research on tuberculosis dating back to 1986, through a variety of NIH, WHO, CDC and non-governmental funding agency initiatives related to tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Many of the key investigators and leadership at Makerere University are principal investigators and site investigators in ongoing studies and clinical trials in tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Professor Moses Joloba (Dean of the School of Biomedical Sciences) is the Site PI of the FEND-TB consortium site at Makerere University, with over 30+ years in tuberculosis research, training and leadership. Dr. Joloba also directs the Supranational TB Reference Laboratory, which is networked with all of the labs in the region.

The Uganda clinical team has strong linkages with the Kampala Capital City Authority TB program. Makerere University hosts the adult FEND-TB protocol and the pediatric FEND-TB protocol, with prior successful involvement in the NIAID Clinical Diagnostics Research Consortium (TB-CDRC) conducting several multi-center diagnostic evaluations (2009-2016), as well as recently completing a superiority study of Ultra Xpert II in pulmonary TB diagnosis.

Kisenyi Health Centre IV in Kampala is a sub-district level outpatient clinic with a designated TB/HIV clinic, established research infrastructure, and capacity to recruit adults and children. The Centre receives about 268 new TB suspects and 32 retreatment cases/month. Mulago National Referral Hospital receives an estimated 150 new TB suspects and 20 retreatment cases/month including adults and children. Mulago Hospital TB ward, a National TB treatment center and Centre of Excellence for MDR-TB care in Uganda, treats approximately 1200 drug susceptible and 150 MDR TB patients each year, with an estimated HIV prevalence of 50%. All three sites are government facilities that operate per the National TB program under the Ministry of Health. Baylor Uganda Children’s Clinical Center of Excellence (CCE), Kampala is an additional site for recruitment of pediatric TB. Comprehensive clinical care is provided for more than 5000 HIV-positive children. In the years 2017-2019, an average of 8 children < 5 years of age were diagnosed with laboratory confirmed TB per year.