Mpagama Stellah G

Stellah main research interest is in the development of solutions for both programmatic and clinical challenges for Infectious Diseases mainly Tuberculosis. In the last 5 years, she received the EDCTP Senior Research Fellowship for setting a rapid response infrastructure that includes a clinical trial unit, and a group of research scientists (3-PhD and 2 clinical research fellow and 5 MSc) that addresses (re)-emerging infectious diseases including multidrug resistant TB in Tanzania. At the same time, she received support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark for research capacity strengthening on implementation science (2-Ph. D) but also conduct research for improving the health care delivery systems through implementation research. Some of the initiatives and public benefits of the created research group includes; leadership in the design and countrywide implementation of changes of the MDR-TB regimen by removing injectable agents and shortened the duration from 18 – 9 months. Leadership in the design and pilot implementation of the programmatic intervention of the chronic respiratory diseases related to pulmonary TB in the health care delivery system in Kilimanjaro and Manyara. Generated evidence on the model for integration of communicable and non-communicable diseases using TB and DM cases as a prototype in the health care delivery systems. During COVID-19, the group sequenced COVID-19 to decipher variants of concerns circulating in Tanzania and provided the needed evidence to the Ministry of Health. In the last 10 years, Stellah has produced over 70 publications in collaborations with various national and international organizations Likewise, from 2021 Stellah is leading the TB clinical trial capacity development in four African countries; Gabon, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. Likewise, she has been delegated to take lead on the Pan African Consortium for Evaluating Anti-TB Antibiotics for joint undertaking of TB research in the third phase of European Union-Africa Global Health Collaborations. Recently she has received the NIH training grant (D43) for supporting six Tanzanian Postdoctoral in TB and Malnutrition to transition them into global research leaders. Stellah professional goal is to build research capacity through meticulous designed clinical and implementation or health system research linking this with mentorship programme that will provide a group of world-class level of scientists. This will eventually translates research into policy and practice in a sustainable manner.