Research and Training Programs

Building on the success of a pilot program training traditional healers to initiate HIV counseling and testing, the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health and the University of Witwatersrand have partnered to expand healer-initiated HIV testing and linkage to care in South Africa.The study team will conduct a cluster, randomized, controlled trial comparing healer-initiated HIV counseling and testing to the standard of care in rural South Africa by utilizing an existing and trusted resource — traditional healers.

Status epilepticus (SE) is the most common serious neurological emergency among children worldwide. In the low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) of sub-Saharan Africa, the burden of childhood SE-associated mortality and morbidity appears to be especially high. However, the phenotypes of childhood SE, clinical predictors of SE-associated mortality and of SE-associated neurodevelopmental morbidity, and genomic predictors of SE, SE-associated mortality and neurodevelopmental morbidity have not been well-characterized in this region.