Biography
M. Bekker-Nielsen Dunbar is a postdoctoral infectious disease modeller at the Department of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine at Heidelberg University Hospital experienced in infectious disease epidemiology, environmental epidemiology, social epidemiology, historical epidemiology, and emergency response. Their current research focuses on the population-level impact and cost-effectiveness of introducing novel diagnostic and therapeutic interventions addressing TB in South Africa.
Key Impacts
Incorporating differential test attributes into population-level models of new TB diagnostics
Population-level models of novel TB diagnostics have primarily focused on improved sensitivity, with limited inclusion of other important test attributes. Current research and development is focused on non-sputum-based, easily deployable diagnostic tests with shorter TAT which current model formulations may not capture well. Future population-level models of TB diagnostics should incorporate a broader set of the key attributes to better estimate real-world impact in high-burden settings.
Source: Conference 2024