The Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) of the University of Nairobi (UoN) is the leading tertiary healthcare training center in Kenya and the East & Central Africa region. It was created in 1985 and has its origin in the Faculty of Medicine which was established in 1967.
Rodents are known reservoir hosts for many pathogens that can cause disease in humans. The risk of zoonotic spillover is high in informal urban settlements (slums) where rodents and human densities are high, rodents live in close proximity to humans and human knowledge of disease risks and access to health care is limited.
On 14th Feb 2022, Prof Walter Jaoko, Prof Omu Anzala and Dr Marianne Mureithi met with Prof. Arthur Kemoli from the Department of Dental Sciences and representatives of the University of Washington led by Prof. Ana Lucia Seminario to discuss setting up a collaborative group that aims at increasing research capacity in oral health and HIV research in Kenya.
Clostridioides difficile is primarily associated with hospital-acquired diarrhoea. The disease burden is aggravated in patients with comorbidities due to increased likelihood of polypharmacy, extended hospital stays and compromised immunity. The study aimed to investigate comorbidity predictors of healthcare facility-onset C. difficile infection (HO-CDI) in hospitalized patients.
The University of Nairobi through the Directorate of University Advancement and Institutional Development, has partnered with Silk Origin Ltd. in the establishment of a Sericulture Center of Excellence. The Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of Nairobi, through the leadership of Dr. Marianne Mureithi will speared microbiology research project using silk worm products to understand their effects on microbes.
“UANDISHI-Building Capacity for Writing Scientific Manuscripts” is an innovative and experiential training program in mentoring and scientific manuscript writing, aimed at fostering scientific manuscripts writing skills and output, at the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS), University of Nairobi (UON). This program complements other existing research training ventures within FHS and is hosted at KAVI-Institute of Clinical Research (KAVI-ICR). IAVI funds UANDISHI through a collaborative grant secured by Dr.
While there have been some disappointments, Dr. Marianne Mureithi of KAVI-UoN told Healthy Nation that challenges in research do not mean failure.
“The HIV trials have not failed, rather, we have learnt a lot from previous trials that have greatly informed us on improving the vaccines and bringing us closer to an efficacious HIV vaccine,” she said.
From Anne Maina's PhD study, recently published in the Pan African Medical Journal. In the Study; we were able to highlight that a syndromic approach to the management of sexually transmitted diseases (STIs) is recommended in areas without adequate laboratory support. Here the study assessed the diagnostic accuracy of this approach in diagnosing Neisseria gonorrhoeae (NG), Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), Trichomonas vaginalis (TV) and Mycoplasma genitalium (MG) among 18 to 49-year-old individuals seeking treatment for STIs in a health centre in Nairobi, Kenya.
What this study adds
This year’s UoN HIV/AIDS Collaborative meeting was held in the Great Rift Valley Lodge in Naivasha from the 26th – 28th of January 2022. The department was represented by the Chairman, Dr Marianne Mureithi, Director Research UNITID- Prof Julius Oyugi, Dr Kariuki Njaanake and Ms Winnie Mutai.
Dr Mureithi’s work focuses on studying multiple social-behavioural, environmental and biological factors associated with the increased susceptibility to sexually transmitted infections and advocating for better access to Sexual and Reproductive health care for all women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa.
