Hooked on ID with Jean B. Nachega, MD, PhD, MPH, FRCP, FAAS
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My interest and career choice in infectious diseases intertwine with a personal life journey that spans across three continents.
I was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) but left as an adolescent refugee because of civil unrest. I settled in Belgium and later the United States. However, my dream was always to one day return to Africa and improve the well-being of African people through treatment and prevention of infectious diseases associated with high morbidity and mortality, such as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.
I graduated as a medical doctor from the Université catholique de Louvain in Brussels, Belgium, in 1989. After the completion of my residency in internal medicine and fellowship in infectious diseases there in 1997, I had the opportunity to go back to the DRC for a clinical rotation at Mama Yemo Hospital in the capital city of Kinshasa. My experience there strengthened my commitment to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa as I witnessed first-hand its devastating effects on all aspects of human life.
The introduction in 1996 of ART in the U.S. and Europe provided hope for HIV patients who could afford treatment, but for most in Africa, this was beyond reach, and I became dedicated to changing this situation. Following the completion of my MPH degree at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) in 2000, my dream was realized as I returned to Africa to lead NIH-funded clinical trials of novel, low-cost, scalable, community-based treatment or prevention approaches for HIV or TB as a JHSPH faculty member based at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, and from 2012 on as a University of Pittsburgh faculty member based at Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, South Africa.
— Jean B. Nachega, MD, PhD, MPH, FRCP, FAAS
Associate professor of epidemiology, infectious diseases and microbiology
Department of Epidemiology and Center for Global Health
University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health