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Research in the Unit addresses infectious diseases of global health
and public health importance in developing countries. Many staff are
practising clinicians and many are also trained in epidemiology, public
health, and/or laboratory science, and collaborate widely with other
units and departments within and outside the School. Research spans
many disciplines, from molecular immunology to public health and policy.
Staff have initiated and are responsible for major research programmes in Zambia, Tanzania, The Gambia, South Africa, Nigeria, Bangladesh and India, and are closely involved with clinical research and teaching at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, London.
The Wellcome Trust Bloomsbury Centre for Clinical Tropical Medicine is based in the Unit, as are two Department for International Development Work Programmes, on TB and HIV/AIDS.
Current research includes:
- clinical studies on TB and other mycobacterial infections and their interaction with HIV infection, including clinical trials; immunoepidemiological studies to determine the relationship between immune responses and the development of clinical TB; trials of preventative therapy against TB in HIV positive individuals; development and evaluation of new diagnostic tests for TB, malaria and enteric parasites; operational research on TB control, with a particular interest in socioanthropological determinants of treatment failure;
- clinical, epidemiological and laboratory-based studies of malaria and malaria control,
- research on the epidemiology of eye diseases and blindness; operational research to identify cost-effective strategies for control of trachoma and other causes of visual impairment and blindness;
- multidisciplinary studies to identify the immunological correlates of protective immunity against ocular and genital infections with Chlamydia trachomatis , and to understand the pathological processes which lead to scarring, which causes blindness and infertility, including studies of genetic susceptibility;
- clinical and immunological studies of leprosy, with a particular focus on the inflammatory episodes (reversal reactions) which commonly complicate the disease;
- community-randomised studies to evaluate interventions against HIV, based on health education and improved reproductive health services; the development and evaluation of new and existing strategies for the management of reproductive tract infections in antenatal and family planning clinics in developing countries, and for the identification of asymptomatically infected individuals;
- clinical and epidemiological studies of acute respiratory tract infections, including
- research into health travellers, the epidemiology of imported infections, diseases affecting ethnic and migrant travellers and behavioural aspects of compliance to malaria prophylaxis.
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