Uganda

Site Institution: Makerere University of College of Health Sciences
Research Areas: HIV/TB & Syndemics, Pulmonary & Lung Disease, and Implementation Science & Data Sciences

Site Description: Makerere University College of Health Sciences (MaKCHS) is one of the leading medical universities in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a mission to improve the health of people in Uganda through quality education, research, and health services. MaKCHS has built a robust implementation research environment through long-standing collaborations with the Uganda Ministry of Health, the National TB and Leprosy Programme (NTLP), and leading international institutions including UCSF, Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Key research platforms include the Uganda TB Implementation Research Consortium (U-TIRC), running studies across 29 clinics with access to hundreds of thousands of patient visits annually, and the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) — housing over 40 active research projects and providing care to over 100,000 people living with HIV. Laboratory resources include the Uganda National TB Reference Laboratory, the Makerere University–Johns Hopkins University (MU-JHU) Core Laboratory — one of the few CLIA-certified laboratories in Sub-Saharan Africa — and the Integrated Biorepository of H3Africa Uganda (IBRH3AU) with capacity for over 400,000 samples. The Makerere Lung Institute (MLI) conducts lung health research integrating disease prevention, clinical care, and training. Research areas relevant to GHES include HIV/TB & Syndemics, Post-TB Lung Disease, Infectious Disease Epidemiology, and AI & Data Sciences.

Trainees engage in clinical, epidemiological, and implementation science research across high-volume study sites, with training in global health leadership, human-centered design, AI and data sciences, and rigorous reproducible research methods, integrated into multi-year NIH-funded programs.

MaKCHS provides dedicated administrative support through the Research Administration Core, covering grants management, procurement, computing support, and logistics. Trainees receive dedicated workspace, laptop computers, and structured co-mentorship with Yale and GHES-affiliated faculty. The program has a strong track record of fellow success:

• Bashir Ssuna now serves as Co-Principal Investigator on the $4.2 million VITAL-HMB study, leading AI-driven epidemiological modeling with collaborators at Cambridge, Oxford, and Washington University in St. Louis.
  
• Dr. Winceslaus Katagira serves as Head of Research and Innovation at the Makerere Lung Institute, having led the first randomized controlled study of pulmonary rehabilitation for post-tuberculosis lung disease in Africa.
  
• Dr. Alfred Andama serves as Chief of Teaching Laboratories at MaKCHS, leading work in tuberculosis diagnostic innovation and mentoring the next generation of early-career researchers.

Site Institution: Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI)
Research Areas: Emerging Zoonotic Diseases, Arbovirology & Entomology, and Vector-Borne Disease Ecology

Site Description: The Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI), located in Entebbe, Uganda, is one of Africa's leading biomedical and public health research institutions and serves as Uganda's premier national center for research on viral, emerging, and re-emerging infectious diseases. Established under the Ministry of Health, UVRI is joining the GHES network building on long-standing collaborations with NIH- and partner-funded programs in infectious disease research, surveillance, and training, and decades of engagement with global health consortia and prior trainee exchanges. Strategically situated near the Ministry of Health headquarters and Uganda's international airport, UVRI operates at the interface of science, surveillance, policy, and training — making it an exceptionally relevant setting for GHES fellows.

UVRI provides a comprehensive research infrastructure combining BSL-2 and BSL-3 laboratory capacity, advanced molecular diagnostics, serological and immunological platforms, a bioinformatics facility recognized as one of the largest on the African continent, and high-performance computing systems supporting genomic analysis and outbreak modeling. The Institute maintains robust biorepository systems, nationwide sentinel surveillance platforms — including influenza, arbovirus, and viral hemorrhagic fever surveillance — and a dedicated clinical trials clinic supported by the UVRI Clinical Trials Initiative. Fellows engage in laboratory, clinical, and field-based research spanning outbreak investigations, surveillance systems, immunology, and data-driven approaches including bioinformatics, disease modeling, and AI-enabled forecasting through programs such as FORECAST, with direct participation in data generation, analysis, and dissemination to scientific and policy audiences.

UVRI is a WHO-designated reference and collaborating center, serving as Uganda's National Influenza Centre and Yellow Fever Reference and Research Laboratory, and collaborates extensively with MRC/LSHTM, Africa CDC, U.S. CDC, WHO, Wellcome Trust-funded consortia, and leading global universities. The Institute provides strong institutional support for GHES trainees including dedicated workspace, structured onboarding, regulatory and visa coordination, and access to shared laboratory, field, and data infrastructure. UVRI emphasizes leadership development, mentoring-the-mentor approaches, and responsible data science, with many supported trainees having progressed to competitive fellowships and leadership roles in global health.

Site Institution: Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST)
Research Areas: Maternal & Child Health, HIV & Infectious Disease, and Medicines Access & Health Systems Strengthening

Site Description: Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) is a public institution established in 1989, located in Mbarara City in southwestern Uganda. Nationally and internationally recognized for best practices in outreach and community relations by the Association of Commonwealth Universities and the European Union, MUST has grown into a leader in implementation science, health systems strengthening, and evidence-based policy development with a particular focus on rural and underserved populations. The university shares a campus with Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital (MRRH), the sole teaching and referral hospital for southwestern Uganda — a region of over 5 million people — providing a direct clinical research environment for fellows.

MUST's research infrastructure is anchored by the MUST Global Health Research Collaboration, which has built extensive partnerships over 20 years with institutions including Yale, UCSF, Vanderbilt, UAB, University of Virginia, and Massachusetts General Hospital. The Collaboration operates five independent research buildings adjacent to the hospital and university, housing enrollment and interview rooms, an independent phlebotomy and specimen collection room, staff offices, and computing infrastructure for over 50 staff. The MUST Research Laboratory is a certified Clinical and Research Laboratory implementing Good Clinical Practice protocols, equipped with real-time PCR, chemistry analyzers, laminar flow biosafety hoods, and biospecimen storage with backup power. MUST operates a Contracts and Grants Office that has received over $7 million in extramural funding and holds multiple NIH awards including D43, R25, and G11 grants, with three faculty recently awarded K43 career development awards.

MRRH houses the ISS Clinic — the hospital's HIV outpatient clinic — serving over 16,000 registered patients with 180 new enrollments monthly, providing free antiretroviral therapy, CD4 and viral load testing, and serving as a regional referral center for PrEP. Trainees engage in community-based clinical research, implementation science, and health systems work with direct access to longitudinal patient cohorts, REDCap data infrastructure, and an active Community Advisory Board comprising patients, community health workers, and clinicians.

MUST provides dedicated administrative support through its Contracts and Grants Office, an independent research ethics committee, and a finance and procurement office. Fellows benefit from dedicated workspace, wireless internet, statistical software including Stata and NVIVO, and structured mentorship through established collaborations with US-based co-mentors. The university's community-oriented research culture ensures that fellows contribute to work with direct relevance to the health of rural and underserved populations in Uganda and the broader region.