Category: global health

Nzia Hall has felt drawn to adult neurology for quite some time. As president of the Student Interest Group in Neurology, she helped revive the organization’s UNC chapter and now finds herself in the midst of applying to multiple neurology residency programs.  During her neurology acting internship, Hall met Dr. Deanna...

In the U.S., cancer diagnosis often involves costly biopsies and tests. In the south African country of Malawi, where the average annual income is around $300, patients can rarely afford such procedures — yet accurate diagnoses remain essential. To help, staff of the long-standing UNC Project Malawi Cancer Program are...

The Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases (IGHID) and UNC Global Women’s Health announce the first two PhD graduates of the UNC-UNZA-Wits Partnership for HIV and Women’s Reproductive Health Training Program, led by co-principal investigators Carla Chibwesha, MD, MSc, and Benjamin Chi, MD, MSc, in Global Women’s Health. Funded by the Fogarty International Center, part of the...

Palliative care improves the quality of life for patients (adults and children) with life-threatening illness. It prevents and relieves suffering through the early identification and correct assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, whether physical, psychosocial or spiritual. Early delivery of palliative care can also reduce unnecessary hospital admissions...

Cervical cancer is a preventable disease, yet one of the most common causes of death among women globally, despite screening measures proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO). In Malawi, efforts have focused on scaling up cervical cancer screening programs, as well as vaccination against the human papillomavirus (HPV). Still,...

In Sub-Saharan Africa, deaths occur in 5-10% of people living with HIV during the first year after initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART), and the causes for these early deaths are not clear. Matthew Painschab, MD, member of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, and an assistant professor of hematology,...

A report published by Lester Gutiérrez, a PhD candidate and IGHID Fellow, provides a new assessment of Giardia lamblia and the pathogenesis of stunting and cognitive growth in children from low- and middle-income countries, published with mentor Luther Bartelt, MD. Giardia is most common during childhood, mainly in low-and-middle income countries. Symptoms...

A new grant from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust will help Margaret Kasaro, MBChB, MSc, MMed OBGYN, research assistant professor of global women’s health in the UNC Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and other team members in their efforts to incorporate portable ultrasounds into antenatal care...

The Malawi Cancer Program, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, UNC Project Malawi, the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, will be hosting the 5th Annual Malawi Cancer Symposium (MCS 2023). This year’s symposium will be held September 6-7, offering a...

UNC’s urologic surgery partnership with Malawi started with Charles Mabedi, MD, the sole urologist in Malawi, who received his urology training in Tanzania and came to UNC as a visiting professor in 2017. Since then, Mabedi has been working with Anthony Charles, MD, the Surgical Director for the Institute for...

If health equity is at the core of global health, practice begins where we put our feet. Health disparities can be intensely local and this includes many populations in North Carolina. The Institute strives to achieve optimal health for the most vulnerable populations, with practice that expands education and training...

Researchers at the UNC School of Medicine’s International Center for the Advancement of Translational Science and the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases have developed a new approach for the detailed evaluation of HIV infection throughout the entire male genital tract, HIV acquisition via the penis and the efficient...

Research capacity building is intrinsic to the work of the Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases (IGHID), nurturing trainees here and around the world. Eli Arant, MD, a third-year infectious diseases fellow in the T-32 training program, represents this training at its best, moving the literature forward in an...

UJMT Fogarty Global Health Fellow Camille Morgan is an MD-PhD candidate working on her PhD in epidemiology. Currently in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), her project applies epidemiological, spatial, and genomic approaches to the largest-known household study of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in Kinshasa, to understand...

Tisu Mvalo, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics and in-country pediatric director of UNC Project Malawi, has been appointed Lancet Global Health Commissioner for Oxygen Security. Medical oxygen security refers broadly to all the policy, economic, infrastructure, technology, supply chain, logistics, clinical guidelines and health workforce required to ensure that pulse oximetry and...

Hematological malignancies, including leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma, are cancers that affect the blood, bone marrow, and lymphatic system. In Malawi, these cancers account for a significant proportion of cancer cases, and their treatment requires a multidisciplinary approach. To answer this need, UNC Project Malawi, Baylor Global Hope and Kamuzu Central...

Chunyan Li is a social and behavioral researcher in the Department of Health Behavior at the Gillings School of Global Public Health applying socially innovative and community-engaged approaches to promote public health in global settings. For her dissertation, she worked with UNC Project-China to assess barriers to PrEP in the province...

Almost 40 years after the discovery of HIV, a new NOVA program “Ending HIV in America” reflects on the history of one of the most elusive and deadly viruses to ever infect humans. Dr. Myron “Mike” Cohen, director of the UNC Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases is the...

Dr. Bongani Kaimila of Lilongwe, Malawi, tragically and unexpectedly passed away at the age of 36 on November 4, 2022. The accident also claimed the life of his father. He is survived by his wife Eunice Kaimila, principal of the Adziwa Christian School, and their four young children. A GoFundMe...

Weiming Tang, PhD, promotes social innovations in health, using crowdsourcing that inspires the creation of equitable and effective health services, as well as pay-it-forward approaches that show how kindness can be contagious in healthcare. As co-director of Project China, Weiming has co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications. And when it comes...