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The GIFT Webinar: Women up to know good

November 1, 2023 Jive Media Africa

The Genital Inflammation Test (GIFT), is a low-cost device that detects vaginal inflammation, one of the biggest drivers of HIV risk and adverse pregnancy outcomes in low and middle income countries.

It has been co-developed in South Africa by an almost exclusively female team, through collaborative approaches, spanning multiple disciplines.

The device – a lateral flow test similar to a pregnancy test – entered clinical trials in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Madagascar in mid-2023, and the next steps will be to finalise and register the test and develop a rollout plan. Learn more at www.gift.org.za, or email gift@uct.ac.za.

As the GIFT team, we know that clinical solutions, whether diagnostic or therapeutic are only part of the problem. If we want to secure health for women across Africa we need to dismantle some of the structural inequality that maintains the status quo. This can only be done through deep reflection and dialogue – which is the purpose of our webinar series, GIFT: Women up to know good.

Episode 01: From knowledge to action: Getting PrEP(ed) for life

Across the African continent and around the world, women remain highly vulnerable to HIV. Knowledge and understanding of HIV risk, however is not enough. Women face significant obstacles outside of their own control.

These obstacles can make it difficult for women to receive and utilise risk protection and care options available. They include, among others: a lack of perception about HIV risk, lack of personal agency and negative attitudes from parents and caregivers, partners who prioritise their own needs over woman’s health and wellbeing, being shamed, judged and reprimanded when asking for help, communication barriers with healthcare providers, a focus on pregnancy prevention rather than risk of HIV, and a lack of access to affordable and effective healthcare, among others.

Within this context, how can we ensure that all women are aware of risks, educated about possibilities for staying safe and enabled to maintain these strategies in the face of their daily lived experiences.

To explore these issues, we invite you to join the conversation on the 29th of November at 13:00 – 14:00 SAST (08:00 – 09:00 US EDT).

Meet the experts:

Professor Elizabeth Bukusi, KEMRI, Kenya

Professor Elizabeth Anne Bukusi: MBChB, M.Med (ObGyn), MPH, PhD, PGD (Research Ethics), MBE is a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences(FAAS). She is a Senior Principal Clinical Research Scientist at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), a Research Professor at the University of Washington (Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Global health), an honorary lecturer at Aga Khan University in Nairobi and Maseno University (Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology) and Volunteer Clinical faculty – Professor at the University of California San Francisco (Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences). Prof. Bukusi, in collaboration with Dr. Craig Cohen at UCSF, established the KEMRI Research Care and Training Program in 1995. She is also the lead faculty for the Bioethics program at the Amref International University (AMIU). In addition to substantial experience in conducting socio-behavioral and biomedical research and providing HIV care, mentoring and training health care and research personnel to enhance local and international capacity, she has a strong interest in research and clinical ethics and the development of systems and structures for regulation of research. She was the founding chairperson of the National Bioethics Society of Kenya, (BSK), a board member of AVAC, and chaired the WHO HRP Alliance (capacity building for RH research) 2016 to 2021, and is a trustee for the HIV Trust

Dr Constance Mackworth-Young, Zimbabwe, Thru Zim and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Professor Mackworth-Young is a Medical Anthropologist, with a research focus on young people, sexual and reproductive health, and adolescent wellbeing. She is based in Zimbabwe, with The Health Research Unit Zimbabwe (THRU-ZIM), where she leads social science research. Professor Mackworth-Young founded and leads the Social Science Research Group in Zimbabwe. Methodologies she focuses on are ethnographic, participatory qualitative methods, and process evaluations. She was previously based at Zambart in Zambia, where she conducted ethnographic studies with young people living with HIV. She holds an undergraduate degree in Biological and Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, and an MSc in Sexual and Reproductive Health and a PhD, both from the London School of Health and Tropical Medicine.

Professor Sinead Delany-Morletwa, Wits RHI, South Africa

Sinead Delany-Moretlwe, MBBCh PhD DTM&H is and Director: Research at Wits RHI Professor of Global Health and Infectious Diseases at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Her research interests span the intersections between sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and infectious diseases, particularly in adolescent girls and young women (AGYW). She has been an investigator on several phase III trials of new HIV prevention technologies and led the landmark trial for cabotegravir as injectable PrEP for women. She has also led several implementation studies to optimize oral PrEP use in adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in eastern and Southern Africa. She has conducted studies to evaluate HPV screening and vaccination approaches for populations living with HIV, as well as studies of novel treatments and vaccines for gonorrhoea. She is an advisor to the South African National Department of Health PrEP technical working group and serves on several WHO and other advisory committees, including PDVAC, the WHO HIV, Hepatitis and Sexually Transmitted Infectious Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee and co-chairs the WHO HHS pregnancy and breastfeeding therapeutics working group.

The panel will be moderated by Dr Ramla Tanko, South Africa

Dr. Ramla Tanko is a Junior Research Fellow in the Mucosal Infections Group (MIG), Division of Medical Virology, and a Fellow of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM) at the University of Cape Town. She obtained her MSc and PhD degrees in Medical Virology from the same institution. Dr. Ramla’s research focuses on investigating factors such as hormonal contraceptives, vitamin D3 deficiency, vaginal inflammation, and microbiome that influence vaginal health and the risk of HIV infection. She is also passionate about discovering disease biomarkers with the potential for translation into clinical tools to improve human health. One aspect of her research involves evaluating the performance of point-of-care tests (GIFT: Genital InFlammation Test) for detecting asymptomatic sexually transmitted infections and bacterial vaginosis. The goal is to improve women’s reproductive health outcomes in Africa and other regions where syndromic management is implemented.

We were proud to host this panel of experts as they reflected on learnings and explored possibilities for how we can ensure that women everywhere have access to the information, care and support to live safe and healthy lives.