Travel to Southern Africa for our research projects
We traveled to Southern Africa for our research projects. Firstly, we went to Dar es Salaam to meet with potential collaborators. Then we traveled to Johannesburg for the PAVIA annual meeting. This was followed by a visit to Wisepill, our small-scale-enterprise partner in Capetown. Lastly, we passed by Blantyre to meet with a trainee fellow and his colleagues.
This was one of my most exciting work trips ever. We firstly flew to Dar es Salaam to meet with colleagues of PharmAccess to discuss possible research projects on digital health and non-communicable diseases. That same day in Dar es Salaam, I passed by the Tanzania Commission for Universities where I received the recognition of my Dutch PhD degree. This recognition is needed for certain jobs or tasks in Tanzania. We had to wait a day for our flight to South Africa with Malawian Airlines through Blantyre.
We were in South Africa for the PAVIA annual consortium meeting. The PAVIA project aims to improve Pharmacovigilance in Africa and is funded by EDCTP. In KCRI, we are responsible for a work-package on communication and stakeholder involvement. Therefore, we were mostly working on communication about the project during this meeting. After this meeting, I flew with one of my PhD students to Capetown to meet with Wisepill, the small scale enterprise that has developed a number of digital adherence tools that we are investigating in our REMIND studies. We met with at their premises where they showed us some future plans and their office. They also brought us to the factory where their chip boards are being produced. After a very informative morning, we were kidnapped to a historical wine-farm. It was great to be there and read a lot about the history, specifically, the (not so nice) Dutch influence. After our visit to Capetown, we flew to Blantyre to meet with my new trainee fellow who will be registered as a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam. He will do research on digital adherence tools for youth in Malawi. We met with a very nice group of young ambitious researchers led by their ‘father’ Dr. Marriott Nliwasa. After this trip, we went back to Tanzania on a rather bumpy flight. It was great to efficiently combine all these parts of our EDCTP funded projects in one trip.