Set-up of study to develop a clinical prognostic tool to predict unfavorable treatment outcomes amongst Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) patients (including blood cultures)

In January 2023, our colleagues Dr. Annelies Mondelaers and Dr. Saskia Van Henten from the Unit of Neglected Tropical Diseases (ITM) and Said Abdellati from the Clinical Reference Lab (ITM) started a new research project in Ethiopia. This prospective cohort study is supported by the DGD, under the FA5 Ethiopia framework, and will be performed by the Leishmaniasis Research and Treatment Center (under supervision of Dr. Eleni Ayele) in close collaboration with ITM. The main objective is to develop a clinical prognostic tool to predict unfavorable treatment outcomes (relapse, treatment failure and mortality) amongst Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) patients. One of the potential prognostic markers that will be further investigated is the presence and type of bacterial infections. Blood culture will be taken from half of the patients. During their stay, they visited the Microbiology lab of University of Gondar Hospital and planned to restart collaboration with them, together with the Unit of Tropical Bacteriology (ITM). Besides this, they prepared the study site for initiation of the project, reinforced local capacity to ensure proper study conduct, and trained clinical, research and study staff on the developed SOPs, optimization of the study procedures and organization of all the study activities.

Clinical

Hospital