George Abongomera

I am a physician and researcher working as Group leader for the Sub-Saharan Africa programs in the public and global health department at the Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute (EBPI), University of Zurich, Switzerland. I oversee and manage various projects and studies, predominately on infectious diseases. In addition, I supervise research activities of clinicians, develop study protocols and identify new research projects. Prior to joining the University of Zurich, I spent over ten years working on HIV and tuberculosis prevention, care and treatment programs, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa. I served as a medical doctor, regional manager, project coordinator, research study investigator and deputy chief of party with the Joint Clinical Research Centre, a leading HIV treatment and research organization in Uganda. I engaged in setting up HIV treatment centres and laboratory support to health facilities including emergency settings (internally displaced camps), capacity building of health care workers and conducting research. My PhD research focused on the decentralization of antiretroviral treatment (ART) to primary health care centers in Uganda, Malawi and Zimbabwe. We demonstrated that it was safe and feasible to initiate HIV treatment at lower level health facilities in rural communities, where patients had to walk long distances to access ART, using the task shifting model with adequate training and functional patient referral networks.