President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete shakes hands with Muhimbili University
of Health Sciences senior lecturer Julie Makani (left) and Prof Esther
Mwaikambo during his familiarization tour of the National Institutes of
Health in Washington DC on July 2, 2014. PHOTOs | FILE
Dar es Salaam —
Name of Tanzanian medical researcher Julie Makani, 49, shot to the
limelight yet again this week after BBC announced its 2019 list of 100
inspiring and influential women from
around the world.
Dr Makani, who now
serves as associate professor in the Department of Haematology and Blood
Transfusion at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences
(Muhas), has dedicated her life -in the past two decades--to research on
treatment for Sickle Cell Disease and working to influence health
policies so that individuals across Africa can access vital diagnostic
tests and medicines.
The winner of the
Royal Society Pfizer Award, Dr Makani comes from one of five countries
in the world with the highest estimated number Sickle Cell Disease (SCD)
births annually.
She is trying to
establish life-changing interventions including blood transfusion and
hydroxyurea, a medicine with strong effects on the bone marrow-- a step
towards the treatment of Sickle Cell Disease.
Currently, she is
leading a team that is researching on a cure using gene therapy, as part
of the expanding scope of research on Sickle cell disease research in
Tanzania.
This is expected to
have a significant impact in raising awareness about a disease that
affects many people in Africa and the achievements made to improve
healthcare.
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Why she chose to research on SCD
In an interview
with the New StatesmanAmerica, years back, Dr Makani stated why she
decided to invest her time and effort on Sickle Cell Disease.
"It has hardly been
recognised from a public health perspective, but the burden of sickle
cell is becoming increasingly visible," she said at the time.
"In Tanzania, about
8,000 to 11,000 children are born every year with sickle-cell disease
and the majority don't know they have it, so up to 90 per cent are not
likely to survive into adulthood," she explained, referring to
statistics released during that time.
"...in 2010, it was 100 years since it was discovered and there's only one drug licensed for use," explains Dr Makani.
"I have cousins who
have been affected; of five of them, three died from the disease. I
actually first spent three years working on malaria. My father told me:
'You should have started on sickle-cell disease earlier' ... Not that it
would have made much of a difference."
Not new in biomedical research
Dr Makani's
interest in biomedical research as earned her fame around the world. In
2004, she received a Wellcome Trust training fellowship and established
the Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) programme at Muhas with prospective
surveillance of over 2,000 SCD patients.
What's SCD?
In sickle cell
disease, according to medical sources, red blood cells are abnormally
shaped, causing problems with the flow of blood through the body and the
resulting transport of oxygen throughout the body.
The disease causes reoccurring episodes of pain and severe organ damage which can result in death.
It is estimated that eight to eleven thousand children per year are born with sickle-cell disease in Tanzania.
Dr Makani's began
her work on SCD work at Muhimbili National Hospital by examining factors
such as malaria, bacterial infections and stroke, which are considered
to significantly contribute to illness and death when interventions are
available.
In collaboration
with her colleagues, she has gone further to develop a biomedical
research and healthcare programme which is one of the largest SCD
cohorts from one centre in the world.
Dr Makani has
worked with other experts to establish networks at a national level in
the regional Sickle Cell Disease Research Network of East and Central
Africa (Redac) and Africa (Sickle Charta - Consortium for Health,
Advocacy, Research and Training in Africa).
The co-founder of
the Sickle Cell Foundation of Tanzania, seeks to use sickle cell disease
as a model to establish scientific and healthcare solutions in Africa
that are locally relevant as well as having global significance.
Globally, she is on
the technical advisory group of Global SCD Research Network,
co-chairing the working group responsible for hydroxyurea therapy in
Africa.
Achieving success
in sickle cell disease will illustrate that with effective global
partnerships, inequities in biomedical science and health can be
addressed and significant advances can be achieved.
Where was she educated?
Makani began her education at St Constantine's Primary school in Arusha.
At university, she
trained in medicine in Tanzania at the then University of Dar es
Salaam's Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences--now known as
Muhas. She obtained her degree in 1994.
Later, she took her
post-graduate studies in internal medicine at the Hammersmith Hospital,
Royal Postgraduate Medical School, University of London, on a
Commonwealth scholarship.
She then went to
Oxford as a Research Fellow at Nuffield Department of Medicine,
University of Oxford and received a four-year PhD training fellowship
from the Wellcome Trust in 2003 to study sickle cell disease in
Tanzania.
She completed her PhD on the clinical epidemiology of sickle cell disease (SCD).
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