Social and health factors associated with adverse treatment outcomes in people with MDR-TB in Sierra Leone

Dr Rashidatu Kamara is a clinician and public health specialist. Her major areas of work are infectious diseases and disease outbreaks. Her interests in infectious diseases led to her work as clinical lead for  multi drug resistance TB programme. She has also been a key player in disease outbreaks such as cholera, Ebola and the current corona virus pandemic, supporting the WHO as a consultant in World Health Emergencies. Rashidatu studied medicine in Sierra Leone and later went on to Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine where she attained her Masters in infectious diseases. She is an associate lecturer at the College of Medicine, University of Sierra Leone and is currently doing a PhD in Public Health and Epidemiology at the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid.

Topic: Sierra Leone is a high TB burden country with challenges in identification, diagnosis and treatment of people with TB. These challenges have evolved with consequences of resistant tuberculosis emerging as a public health threat. With the aid of molecular diagnostics and novel drugs, programmatic actions were initiated to diagnose and treat all people with MDR-TB at the National Centre for Tuberculosis, Lakka Government Hospital. With the aim of designing interventions to improve care, Rashida and team followed up the national cohort of people with MDR-TB from 2017 to 2021 to evaluate their treatment outcomes. The study results are in press with Lancet Global Health.