Helen Ayles BSc MBBS MRCP DTM&H MSc PhD

Senior Lecturer Director ZAMBART Project

I am a Senior Lecturer in the Clinical research Unit London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and for the last 6 years have been director of the Zambia AIDS-Related TB (ZAMBART) Project.

I trained as a Physician in London and specialized in infectious and tropical diseases. I have worked as a clinician in UK, Uganda and Zambia and have over 12 years of developing country experience both in clinical TB/HIV management and epidemiology, leading the ZAMBART project that has conducted research into the dual TB/HIV epidemic for 20 years in Zambia. I am on of the principal investigators of the ZAMSTAR trial, a community randomized trial of interventions to reduce the prevalence of TB in communities highly affected by HIV. This trial is part of the CREATE consortium funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Other research grants and interests include: field evaluation of TB diagnostics, Zambia national TB drug resistance survey as well as operational research into the implementation of TB/HIV collaborative activities. I am also involved in a new community randomised trial to evaluate an intervention aimed atimproving health outcomes by strengthening the health system. This study, the BHOMA trial is one of the 4 studies funded by the African health Initiative of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

I am  a technical advisor on national TB/HIV and MDR-TB working groups and part of the Zambian national TB review team and a member of the WHO TB/HIV working group.

Affiliation

Teaching

 I am  a tutor on the DL infectious Diseases tuberculosis module.

In addition I have 4 Zambian PhD students; Monde Muyoyeta, Kwame Shanaube, Nathaniel Chishinga and Wilbroad Mutale. Many of my team in ZAMBART are taking masters degrees by distance learning and I supervise their projects as well as a few London based masters students every year.

Research

I am the one of the principal investigators of the Zambia South Africa TB and AIDS Reduction Study (ZAMSTAR) which is funded via the Consortium to Respond Effectively to the TB and AIDS Epidemics (CREATE) by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This is a large community randomized trial of 2 interventions to reduce the prevalence of TB at community level. There are 16 sites in Zambia and 8 in South Africa covering a total population of approximately 1.2million people.

I am also the PI for the evaluation of the BHOMA trial, a stepped wedge community randomized trial of a complex intervention to improve primary health care. This trial is being conducted in 42 communities in Zambias Lusaka Province. The intervention team is from CIDRZ and teh University of Alabama in Birmingham ( UAB) and is funded by the African Health Initiative of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Research areas

  • Clinical trials
  • Complex interventions
  • Diagnostics
  • Health systems
  • Public health

Disciplines

  • Epidemiology
  • Medicine
  • Operational research

Disease and Health Conditions

  • HIV/AIDS
  • Tuberculosis

Countries

  • Zambia

Other interests

  • Access To Care
  • Adult Mortality
  • Africa
  • Antiretroviral Therapy
  • Child Mortality
  • Clinical Tropical Medicine
  • Cluster Randomised Trials
  • Effectiveness Evaluations
  • HAART
  • HIV
  • HIV Prevention
  • HIV Testing
  • HIV Treatment
  • Households And Families
  • Population Based Interventions
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