FUNDAÇAO MANHIÇA – Manhiça Health Research Center
CISM is a consolidated research center, highly specialized and with a strong capacity for research on transmissible diseases prevalent in Mozambique, with particular focus on the main causes of morbidity and mortality in the country (malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and bacterial diseases).
The CISM is managed by The Manhiça Foundation, a private non-profit foundation, created in 2008 by the governments of Mozambique and Spain, the National Institute of Health of Mozambique (INS), The Clinical Foundation for Biomedical Research (Hospital Clínic-University of Barcelona) and Dr. Pascoal Mocumbi as an honorary founding member.
Main tasks in the project
CISM will be leading both clinical trials of the study to be implemented in Mozambique. Led by Dr. Inácio Mandomando the team will be taking part to the activities of implementation subsequent to the development of the device and identification of the biomarkers.
CISM will also lead the WP6 dedicated to the socio-behavioral sciences that will aim to understand the adoption of new technologies by patients and also clinical personnel.
PhD Student - Áuria Solange Justa de Jesus
Dr, Áuria Solange Justa de Jesus, with undergraduate studies in Medicine from the prestigious Medicine Faculty – Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), Maputo, Mozambique, joined the Centro de Investigação em Saúde de Manhiça (CISM) in Mozambique, in December 2020. At CISM, initially, she worked on the MozCOVID (Coronavirus Disease 2019 Surveillance in Manhiça District, Southern Mozambique for a prompt and effective response against the epidemic) project, which was funded by EDCTP where she was the project manager and responsible for coordinating the implementation of the COVID-19 passive surveillance system at the Manhiça Distrital Hospital (Manhiça district in Southern Mozambique), coordinating the follow-up of the contacts of positive participants, the implementation of a cohort of participants to evaluate and collect data from the natural history of COVID-19 and for coordinating the implementation of four community-based cross-sectional studies to evaluate the seroprevalence at the community level.
From June 2022 to September 2023, Dr. de Jesus collaborated on a project named Stopping Transmission of Intestinal Parasites (STOP), a multicentric consortium coordinated by the Instituto de Salud Global (ISGlobal) in Barcelona and also funded by the EDCTP aimed to develop and evaluate a new anthelminthic drug through the ALIVE trial (Evaluation of the effectiveness of ALBENDAZOLE-IVERMECTIN co-formulation vs. ALBENDAZOLE for the treatment of intestinal worms) and to integrate the use of molecular biology techniques for the detection of Soil-Transmitted Helminths (STH) and anthelmintic resistance in clinical trials. Within the ALIVE clinical trial, she was responsible for the clinical coordination at CISM’s site, which included all the medical decisions regarding participants in the trial (inclusion and exclusion criterias, IMP administration and safety evaluations, and additional treatment).
Since September 2023, thanks to her great performance as a clinical coordinator in ALIVE, she was appointed to coordinate another clinical trial, TSCV – Trivalent Salmonella (S. Enteritidis/S. Typhimurium/S. Typhi Vi) Conjugate Vaccine, at the Manhiça site, which is aimed to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of this new Salmonella conjugated vaccine sponsored by the University of Maryland, Baltimore and funded by The Wellcome Trust.
In her time at CISM, Dr. de Jesus has contributed in multiple studies and manuscripts published or under consideration in prestigious journals (The Lancet Global Health, The Lancet), including her first, first author manuscript. She has also been awarded travel grants to attend and present the results of her work in the International Conference on Public Health in Africa (CPHIA 2022) in Kigali, Rwanda and the 11th EDCTP Forum (2023) in Paris, France.
It is this experience in clinical research that Dr. de Jesus brings to the EChiLiBRiST project, where she has recently joined as a pre-doctoral fellow. Here she intends to continue her career in research and medicine by pursuing a highly reputed post-graduate program, by attending the PhD in Medicine and Translation Research at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences from Universitat de Barcelona under the supervision of Dr Inácio Mandomando and Prof. Quique Bassat, to improve the health care for the Mozambican population and other low-income countries, with the main objective of contributing to save more children’s lives.
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