Speakers | Annual Birth Defects Surveillance Stakeholders Meeting
10 August 2023
Prof. Philippa Musoke (MBChB, FAAP, PhD)
Principal Investigator, BD Surveillance Project·MU-JHU Care Ltd
Boris Groisman
Medical Geneticist and Epidemiologist
Red Nacional de Anomalías Congénitas de Argentina (RENAC)
Boris Groisman is a medical geneticist and epidemiologist from Argentina. He´s a member of the coordination of the National Network of Congenital Anomalies of Argentina (RENAC), a birth defects surveillance program covering around 230,000 births per year in the country. His areas of expertise are epidemiological analysis, information and communications technology, public health surveillance, and medical genetics.
Boris Groisman is a member of the Executive Committee of the International Clearinghouse for Birth Defects Surveillance and Research (ICBDSR). He regularly participates as faculty in international training programs on birth defects surveillance.
Emilio Dirlikov, PhD
Branch Chief, Health Services·U.S. CDC Uganda Country Office
Dr. Emilio Dirlikov currently serves as CDC Uganda Country Office’s Health Services Branch Chief. Previously, he has served as the acting DGHT program director in Nigeria. There, he helped lead the Nigeria PEPFAR Antiretroviral (ART) Therapy Surge (April 2019–December 2020), through which the number of people living with HIV receiving PEPFAR-supported HIV treatment increased by over 700,000, doubling the number on treatment and accelerating progress toward epidemic control even during COVID-19. Dr. Dirlikov joined CDC in 2015 as the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer posted to the Puerto Rico Department of Health, where he led investigations on cases of imported malaria, rabies, and tuberculosis (TB). Throughout the local Zika virus emergency public health response (January 2016–June 2017), he served as Team Lead for Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and other neurologic conditions among adults. He has also deployed on CDC emergency responses to China and U.S. for COVID-19 (2020), Guinea for Ebola (2015–2016), Burkina Faso for dengue virus (2017), as well as Liberia and Mozambique for measles (2018). Prior to joining CDC, Dr. Dirlikov spent much of his academic life researching public health in China, including 2 years investigating TB control in mainland China as part of his doctoral investigations. As of July 31, 2023, he has authored 50 publications, 23 (46%) of which he first-authored (i10-index = 26). He is a Mexican-Bulgarian American, and speaks Spanish, Mandarin-Chinese, and French. When time permits, he is an avid long-distance swimmer, biker, and runner, who has completed eight marathons. He is passionate about history, graphic design, and travel.
Daniel Mwanja Mumpe (MB ChB, MPH)
Program Manager, BD Surveillance Project· MU-JHU Care Ltd
Dr. Mumpe is a public health physician, and is the program manager of the hospital -based birth defects surveillance in Uganda since 2014. He is part of the team that planned the implementation of the surveillance project in Uganda, he contributed to the development of the protocol, the standard operating procedures, staff recruitment and training. After surveillance set-up he has been involved in quality control and quality assurance activities, confirmation of birth defects, data cleaning, analysis, and dissemination of the findings. He is a lead co-author of the surveillance methods and birth defects prevalence paper. He is currently taking lead on writing a hypospadias manuscript. He is also involved in planning the expansion of the birth defects surveillance project.
Robert Serunjogi
Data Manager, BD Surveillance Project·MU-JHU Care Ltd
Robert Serunjogi has over 20 years of experience in Data Management, and, monitoring and evaluation. He currently works with Makerere University John Hopkins University Research Collaboration as a Data Manager for the Hospital-based Birth Defects Surveillance project. Robert has for the past seven years been managing the Birth Defects database that observes approximately 40,000 births per year from four major Hospitals in Kampala. He has made significant contributions to six publications, and as a lead author of one of them: “Comparative analysis of perinatal outcomes and birth defects amongst adolescent and older Ugandan mothers: evidence from a hospital-based surveillance database.
Joyce Namale Matovu
Hospital Liaison Coordinator, BD Surveillance Project·MU-JHU Care Ltd
Joyce Namale-Matovu is a counselling psychologist with midwifery background and has been employed by Makerere University-Johns Hopkins University Research Collaboration for over 18 years. She has been instrumental in implementing PMTCT activities and Birth defect (BD) surveillance program in Ugandan hospitals that include one government and three not-for profit hospitals. Currently, she is the BD Hospital Liaison Coordinator, responsible for coordinating, supervising, training and supporting nurses/midwives implement birth defect activities, a role she has played for over 8 years. Joyce has made significant contribution towards implementation research including nine publications, and as a lead author, on three of them.
Emily Namara Lugolobi (MBCHB, MPH)
Public Health Specialist – PMTCT/MCH·U.S. CDC Uganda Country Office
Dr. Emily Namara-Lugolobi (MBCHB, MPH) is a Public Health Specialist with the PMTCT/MCH program at CDC Uganda. She has over fifteen years of experience in implementing PMTCT programs and has published articles focusing on elimination of mother to child transmission (eMTCT) of HIV. She previously worked as a program manager for MU-JHU’s HIV Prevention Care and Treatment Program that is implemented at two high volume facilities, that is, the MU-JHU ART clinic and Kawempe National Referral Hospital. She is also a member of the PMTCT Technical Working Group at the Uganda Ministry of Health. Her areas of interest include preventing HIV acquisition among women of reproductive age and the use of electronic medical records to improve health care delivery in public health facilities.
Sheila Ampaire (BPharm, MPH, and MSc Clinical Trials, LSHTM.)
Principal Regulatory Officer – Research·National Drug Authority
Sheila is a highly qualified medicine regulation professional. As the Principal Regulatory Officer – Research at the National Drug Authority, she is responsible for coordinating operational research and linking NDA with the scientific research community. Additionally, Sheila serves as the Secretary for the Antimicrobial Resistance Committee, where she coordinates activities related to antimicrobial resistance. She has almost 6 years of experience in Clinical Trials regulation at NDA, where she contributed to setting up systems for the timely evaluation of clinical trial applications. She has also been a vital asset to Pharmacovigilance initiatives. Prior to her position at NDA, she worked as a Clinical Pharmacist at the International Hospital in Kampala. Currently, Sheila is pursuing a certificate in Effective Writing for Healthcare at Harvard Medical School, with a goal of improving the impact of scientific research in the field of medicines regulation. Sheila holds a Master of Science degree in Clinical Trials from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (University of London), MPH from UMU and a Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from Mbarara University of Science and Technology. In her free time, she writes Christian content for social media.
Emma Kalk (MBBCh, PhD, MPH)
Associate Professor | Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology & Research in the School of Public Health
University of Cape Town, South Africa
Associate Professor Emma Kalk is a clinical epidemiologist at the Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology & Research in the School of Public Health at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She has been engaged in clinical and epidemiological research in the fields of maternal and child health for over 10 years.
With a focus on operational research, her current interests include pharmacovigilance and surveillance in pregnant and breast-feeding women with an emphasis on infectious exposures and antiretroviral and anti-tuberculosis therapy. She manages the Pregnancy Exposure Registry in Cape Town (a sentinel-site of the South African Pregnancy Exposure Registry) which is supported by a larger population-level database.
Dr Kalk is a founding and active member of the sub-Saharan African Congenital Anomalies Network (sSCAN).
Jesca Nsungwa-Sabiiti ( M.D, MMed (Paed), PhD)
Commissioner, Department of Reproductive and Child Health·Ministry of Health, Uganda
Dr Jesca Nsungwa-Sabiiti is currently the Commissioner of Reproductive and Child Health department, Ministry of Health, Uganda. A pediatrician with over 30 years of experience in the field and holds a PhD in Public Health from Karolinska Institute, Sweden in Health Systems Development. She has also served as a consultant/advisor for various international organizations and spearheaded the development and rollout of a number of policies and high impact interventions.
Henry Musoke
Country Clubfoot program Coordinator·National Clubfoot Program of Uganda (NCPU)
Henry Musoke is the Country clubfoot program coordinator for the national clubfoot program of Uganda (NCPU). He is seasoned clinical Orthopaedic officer, health system manager, programmer and vocational Pedagogue. He has actively practiced the Ponseti clubfoot treatment over 23 years from which he became, a member of the Global Clubfoot Initiative (GCI) a consortium of individuals and organizations with technical and organizational expertise in clubfoot management, using the Ponseti method and experience in establishing national clubfoot programs in low and middle income countries. He is Certified Ponseti treatment trainer under GCI for the English speaking Africa. He has worked on a number of clubfoot programs in different capacities and instrumental in establishing the Ponseti method of clubfoot in Uganda and Africa at large. Has participated in a number of clubfoot studies in Uganda to establish the prevalence of clubfoot, ethno-cultural on clubfoot, and recently, Exploring bracing adherence in Ponseti treatment of clubfoot: A comparative study of factors and outcomes in Uganda. Henry holds a Masters of Vocational Pedagogy (Kyambogo University, Master of management studies (UMI), PGD in Project Planning and Management (UMI) a Bachelor’s Degree in Health Management and social services (UNISA) and Diploma in Clinical Orthopaedics from Uganda Institute of Allied health sciences and Management –Mulago
Estella Birabwa Babirukamu (MBChB, MIPH)
PEPFAR Program Manager, DOD WRAIR country office·US Department of Defense Walter Reed Army Institute of Research- (DOD WRAIR)
Dr. Estella Birabwa has about 18 years of work experience as a public health specialist in the field of HIV & TB. Estella started her career with the Infectious Diseases Institute where she offered prevention, care and treatment services to PLHIV, was involved in research and started the adolescent clinic. She worked with the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) where she led the national HIV QA/QC Serology project. She then transitioned on to The International Union Against TB and Lung Disease as the Program Director & TB Reach Project Principal Investigator. She then joined the USAID Uganda country office where she served in several roles as the Program Management specialist for TB/HIV, the Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision Medical Liaison, and the PMTCT and pediatrics specialist. Currently under DOD WRAIR, she is the PEPFAR Program Manager for the DOD WRAIR Uganda country office where she manages the overall HIV and TB prevention, care and treatment program and is involved in several research activities. Outside the sphere of work, she is passionate about serving voluntarily with charity organizations, physical exercise, interior design, flowers and gardening, and swimming.
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Philippa Musoke, MBChB, FAAP, PhD, MU-JHU Executive Director, is a paediatric infectious disease specialist by training and the former Head of Paediatrics and Child Health at Makerere University, College of Health Sciences. She has published widely on the prevention of mother to child HIV transmission (PMTCT) clinical trials and on paediatric antiretroviral treatment in resource-limited settings. Dr. Musoke has served as a technical advisor to WHO and is the Chair of the National PMTCT Technical Advisory Committee and Paediatric ART sub-committee for the Uganda Ministry of Health (MOH). She has been a lead investigator on a number of NIH DAIDS PMTCT clinical trials;HIVNET012, PETRA, HPTN046, SWEN/HIVIGLOB, PROMISE and IMPAACT 2010; and also served as lead investigator for an operational PMTCT project using peer ‘sengas’ (or culturally influential ‘aunties’) to improve adherence to ART and retention in care for pregnant women on Option B+ in Kampala and a rural Mpigi District. After the HIVNET 012 trial results were released in 1999, Prof. Philippa Musoke and other investigators at MU-JHU assisted the MOH with the national scale-up of the single-dose nevirapine (NVP) regimen for PMTCT across Uganda and subsequent improvements in eMTCT interventions. She has also been involved in multiple paediatric HIV/TB treatment trials including pharmacokinetic studies; P1060, P1070, P1092, P1093, P1115, Odyssey, ARROW, D3 and SHINE. She also received the EGPAF International Leadership Award where she conducted a study to determine the efficacy of the adult fixed-dose combination ART in children when paediatric formulations were not readily available. She is currently the Executive Director for MU-JHU Care Ltd and the principal investigator of the CDC funded Birth Defects Surveillance project.