Biography

Dr Emma Kalk is a Clinical Epidemiologist in the Centre for Integrated Data & Epidemiological Research where she manages maternal and child health projects. She has a medical background in paediatric HIV clinical studies. Her current research focuses on the impact of HIV and ART in vertical transmission of HIV; this has expanded to include all pregnancy exposures with a special interest in pharmacovigilance during pregnancy and breast-feeding. Dr Kalk is involved in projects that support a population-based database which links operational health data sources and sentinel site-based implementation science studies (which includes the Western Cape Pregnancy Exposure Registry).

Expertise

TB Diagnostics
Public Health

Key Impacts

An assessment of guideline implementation for TB screening among pregnant women living with HIV using linked population data in the Western Cape, South Africa

TB is common before and during pregnancy in WLHIV in the WC. GXP testing among pWLHIV in the WC increased annually with implementation of the screening guidelines in 2019. The corresponding decline in the rate of GXP positivity supports the conclusion that these are screening, rather than diagnostic, tests. However, guideline implementation remains poor. Given the adverse maternal, pregnancy and neonatal outcomes of maternal TB, effort is required to improve screening uptake.

Source: Conference 2024

Research Summaries

PAPER
Policy change cut mother-to-child HIV but gaps remain
07 Jul 2025
 PAPER
Pregnant women face delays starting tuberculosis treatment in Cape Town
19 Feb 2026