KZN institute secures R1.6bn research grant
THE Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) based at the University of Kwazulu-natal (UKZN) has secured R1.6 billion in funding to respond to urgent health challenges.
AHRI received the award from Wellcome Trust.
The seven-year grant will allow AHRI to expand its research to address key questions, including:
How can HIV be prevented in rural communities? How can HIV be cured? How can the spread of tuberculosis (TB) be prevented in rural communities? Do new vaccines prevent TB? How can new infections such as Covid-19 be identified early and controlled? How can mental health disorders in rural adolescents best be treated?
The grant will also support AHRI in its mission to train the next generation of African scientists.
AHRI executive director Professor Willem Hanekom said: “This grant is a vote of confidence in our ability to produce excellent scientific research. We believe our broad research value chain, from population to basic sciences, and strong collaborations with communities and other research stakeholders place us in a unique position to address some of the most pressing health challenges facing under-resourced populations globally.”
Wellcome chief research programmes officer Cheryl Moore said: “AHRI is extremely well positioned to lead world-class research into long-standing threats such as TB and HIV, and is also advancing research into newer, but no less significant, challenges such as Covid-19 and adolescent mental health.”
Located at the heart of the HIV/ TB co-epidemics in KZN, AHRI’S research focuses on understanding and responding to diseases that are the major causes of illness and death in South Africa.
Twenty-eight faculty members drive the institute’s interdisciplinary research.
AHRI hosts a health and demographic surveillance system in rural northern KZN, and its laboratories are among the most sophisticated in Africa.
The institute’s clinical trials unit tests new vaccines and drugs.