Biography

Dr. Elijah Kakande is a research scientist and investigator at the Infectious Diseases Research Collaboration in Kampala, Uganda, passionate about developing and implementing interventions for TB/HIV prevention in rural Uganda. Previously, Dr. Kakande led the implementation of a multi-component intervention targeting mid-level health managers to increase the uptake of TB preventive therapy among adults living with HIV in Uganda which increased TPT uptake. Building on this work, Dr. Kakande seeks to understand how to increase TB preventive treatment in children, first by understanding when and where children and youth acquire TB infection.

Expertise

TB Diagnostics
Public Health

Key Impacts

Differences in social networks of children and youth with and without incident TB infection in rural Uganda

Children and youth with incident TB infection had significantly different social mixing patterns compared to controls, including more social contacts among youth, more highly mobile contacts and contacts with TB infection among children. Leveraging social-networks to enhance case-finding and identify children at higher risk for TB could be promising strategies warranting further study.

Source: Conference 2024