General Medicine & Global Health (GMGH) was established in 2019 by Associate Professor Friedrich Thienemann. The mission of GMGH falls within HICRA to improve global health through research, education and health services in partnership with institutions in our communities in Africa.
Research focus: Infectious diseases and interaction with non-communicable diseases
Intervening along the spectrum of tuberculosis
HIV and cardiovascular disease
Tuberculosis and cardiovascular disease
Post-tuberculosis lung disease
Staff members
Prof Friedrich Thienemann – Director/ Chief Principal Investigator
Dr Sandra Mukasa – Deputy Director/ Local Principal Investigator
Dr Samy Hassan – Medical Officer and PET/CT reader
Dr Patrick Katoto – Medical Officer and PET/CT reader
Ms Nosipho Mkuzangwe - Study Coordinator
Ms Siphokazi Khonkwane - Clinical Research worker
Current Project
Background
Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) causes 1.8 million deaths annually. [1] Sub-Saharan Africa carries the highest burden of tuberculosis (TB) [2, 3] with recurrent TB rates between 3-5% after treatment completion accounting for 10–30% of all cases within some TB control programs. [4] Multiple risk factors have been identified to cause recurrent diseases such as adherence to treatment, drug resistant
TB, HIV-infection, positive culture at 2 months of treatment, and extensive lung disease such as cavitation. [5, 6] Recently, persistent pulmonary inflammation at the end of TB treatment and ongoing paucibacillary Mtb replication has moved into the focus of TB research.
StatinTB Trial
Protocol title: Preventing TB relapse and chronic lung disease: A proof-of-concept, double-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of atorvastatin to reduce inflammation after TB treatment completion in HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected adults measured by FDG-PET/CT. (StatinTB)
The primary objective is to compare persistent lung inflammation measured by total lung glycolysis (TLG) on PET/CT after 12 weeks of 40 mg atorvastatin therapy and placebo. If successful this trial will have proven that statins as Host Directed Therapy (HDT) can be safe and effective adjunctive therapy to TB treatment in general and further efficacy trials can be undertaken to translate the results of this trial into reduced TB relapse rate and reduced post-TB chronic lung disease, thus decreased long-term TB-related morbidity.
