London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

LSHTM is a host institution to cohorts of Fleming Fund Fellows, currently from Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe. The Fleming Fund Fellowship programme is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, UK Government, with the intention to develop the skills required in leading national institutions to help combat the global threat of antibiotic resistance. 

Each fellow works within a government department and has been selected to embark on an 18-month fellowship alongside a cohort of other fellows, each with their own specialist area. The fellowships include training, mentorship and collaborative projects in the following topics, across both human and animal health: AMR laboratory work, AMR surveillance, and antibiotic use (ABU) surveillance.  

In this seminar, the LSHTM’s role as the host institution will be introduced, and the projects of three Ghanaian fellows will be presented, representing laboratory and antibiotic use projects in human and animal health.

Speakers

Professor Clare Chandler, LSHTM

Clare is a medical anthropologist and the co-Director of the LSHTM Antimicrobial Resistance Centre, which works to inspire innovation through interdisciplinary engagements.

Her research interests lie in the application of anthropological methods and theory to policies and practices relating to medicine use, diagnostic testing, management of febrile illnesses and health care improvement interventions. Her current research focus is antimicrobial resistance.

Clare leads the Anthropology of Antimicrobial Resistance research group, a dynamic group of anthropologists addressing this issue through a number of research projects.

She is Principal Investigator for the ESRC funded Anti-Microbials In Society (AMIS) Programme, which aims to bring fresh perspectives to social studies of antimicrobial resistance. The Programme includes empirical studies in Thailand and Uganda as well as the AMIS Hub web platform, which profiles high quality social research on AMR through a library of essential readings, people and projects listings, thematic summaries and commentaries.

Dr Richard Stabler, LSHTM

Dr Stablers’ research focus is to understand how and why highly virulent bacteria evolve, in particular in response to the antimicrobial challenge. His focus has been nosocomial pathogens especially those are very much in the public and political eye for example Clostridium difficile and MRSA. More recently he has been focused on Acinetobacter baumannii, the human pathogen declared the highest priority by the WHO in 2017. A. baumannii has evolved to be extremely drug resistant with few treatment options in HIC countries and a far worse situation in LMIC countries. He has been using high throughput sequencing technologies to understand the A. baumannii epidemiology and assessing the use of a bacteriophage depolymerase and ajunct antibody therapy as an alternative to antibiotics employing a disarming rather than kill methodology to reduce the selective pressure that drive AMR.

Mrs Jennifer Bonnah, Food and Drugs Authority, Ghana

Jennifer Bonnah is a Regulatory Pharmacist who has been working in regulation of medicinal products with the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) of Ghana, the national medicines regulatory body since 2004 till date. Currently, she is the Chair of the FDA AMR Team and also works with the Medicines Evaluation and Registration Department. She is the focal person representing the FDA on the Ghana National AMR Platform, offering technical advice on quality, safety and efficacy of antimicrobials for human and veterinary use. She was a member of the Technical Working Group that developed the Ghana National Action Plan on AMR and served as the Antimicrobial Use (AMU) Technical Lead, Human Health for the just ended Fleming Fund Country Grant for AMR projects in Ghana.

Dr Nicholas Dayie, University of Ghana Medical School

Nicholas Dayie is a lecturer at the University of Ghana and a Fleming Fellow (Laboratory Human Health). He received training in Clinical Bacteriology and Applied Communicable Disease Control from LSHTM. He is a mentee of Prof. Richard Stabler, a Molecular Bacteriologist at LSHTM. In addition, he spent some time in the MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM where he acquired skills in Laboratory Quality Management Systems (LQMS). He led the Reference Laboratory designated for AMR Surveillance to participate successfully in the 2018/2019 WHO EQA Programme organised by the Danish Technical University (DTU), Copenhagen.

Mrs Mary Nkansa, Public Health and Food Safety Unit, Veterinary Services Directorate, Ghana

Mary Nkansa is a Public Health Professional and a Fleming Fellow in Animal Health with special interest in antimicrobial use in terrestrial and aquatic animals. Mary received her Bachelor’s Degree in Agriculture from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana and Master’s Degree from the University of Tromso, Norway in International Fisheries Management. She also has a second Master’s Degree in Public Health from the Ensign College of Public Health which is affiliated to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology respectively. She currently works as a Principal Officer at the Aquatic Animal Health Unit of the Fisheries Commission, Ghana and also on secondment to the Public Health and Food Safety Unit of the Veterinary Services Directorate of Ghana.

Please note that the time listed is Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)

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