Prof Joe Jarvis
Prof of Tropical Medicine&Intern Health
United Kingdom
I am an NIHR Global Health Research Professor, currently based between LSHTM and Gaborone, Botswana, where I work for the Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership. My main research interests are advanced HIV disease, opportunistic infections, cryptococcal meningitis and other CNS infections, and strategies to rapidly and safely initiate ART in individuals with low CD4 counts. I was the Chief Investigator for the AMBITION-cm trial examining new treatments for HIV-associated cryptococcal meningitis in Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Malawi, and Uganda, and recently worked as Research Director for the CDC Implementation Protocol of the Botswana Combination Prevention Project (BCPP). I hold an NIHR Global Health Research Professorship and lead an NIHR Global Health Group on HIV-asociated fungal infections. I am a member of the external review group for the WHO Guidelines for Managing Advanced HIV Disease and Rapid Initiation of Antiretroviral Therapy, and a guidelines development group member for WHO guidelines on preventing, diagnosing, and managing cryptococcal disease in HIV infected adults, adolescents and children. In addition to my research I work as an infectious diseases consultant in Botswana and at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London.
Affiliations
Teaching
I am a member of the teaching faculty on the East African DTM&H course, jointly run by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Johns Hopkins University and the University of Washington, and based at African partner sites in Tanzania (Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College) and Uganda (Makerere University). I am module co-lead for the Tropical Medicine and parasitology week. I also lecture on the London based DTM&H, supervise summer projects for Tropical Medicine and International Health MSc students, and supervise PhD students based in Botswana and South Africa.
Research
I recently completed a €10 million EDCTP / Wellcome Trust / MRC / DFID Joint Global Health Trials co-funded project running a multi-centre randomised trial investigating single-dose liposomal amphotericin treatment for HIV-associated cryptococcal meningitis (the AMBITION-cm Trial). The trial consortium involved partners in Africa (University of Cape Town; University of Zimbabwe; Botswana Harvard Partnership; Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Trust Centre, Blantyre and the University of North Carolina Project, Lilongwe, Malawi; and the Infectious Diseases Institute, Makerere University, Uganda) and Europe (St. George's University of London; University of Liverpool; Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine; and Institut Pasteur Paris). In addition to the clinical trial, the project included PK/PD analyses, an economic evaluation, and numerous sub-studies, as well as a considerable training and capacity building component. The findings were published in the NEJM in March 2022, and WHO guidelines were updated to include the new strategy as recommended first line treatment in April 2022.
Building on the trial, my NIHR professorship funds translational studies aimed at improving understanding of the aetiology of meningitis in high HIV-prevalence settings, developing and testing novel diagnostics for central nervous system infections, and exploring host genetic susceptibility to cryptococcal meningitis. A CDC collaborative award is supporting the roll-out of the AMBITION-cm regimen widely across Africa. And the NIHR Global Health Group, co-led with Professor Nelesh Govender at the NICD in Johannesburg, South Africa, is applying the lessons learnt through the AMBITION-cm trial to other HIV-associated fungal infections of public health importance including histoplasmosis, PCP, and talaromycosis.