Who we are

Here at Cancer & Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Research Unit, we are driven by a single goal; to do our part in making the world a better place for all. Our decision making process is informed by comprehensive empirical studies and high quality data evaluation. We strive to build productive relationships and make a positive impact with all of our pursuits.

Leadership

Prof Themba G Ginindza

Prof Themba G. Ginindza is the Director of the Cancer & Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Research Unit (CIDERU). He is an experienced Epidemiologist who has conducted research across diverse disease spectrum, covering STIs (HPV, HIV/AIDS, CT, NG, TV, Syphilis), and cancer Epidemiology, culminating in over 60 publications in peer-reviewed international and local journals, more than half of which are in Quintile One (Q1) Ranking. He also teaches Epidemiology and supervises epidemiological research at postgraduate level Currently, Lead PI in Multinational Lung Cancer Control Programme (MLCCP) involving Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Eswatini, Lesotho and Ethiopia (2017 – 2023); PI in Cervical Cancer Prevention, Access and Control (CCPAC) Programme in Zululand District, KwaZulu-Natal, through a Consortium of Health Systems Trust (HST), Genius Quality (GQ), Department of Health (DOH) and Cancer and Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Research Unit (CIDERU) (2022 – 2024); Co-PI in the Cervical cancer Screening and Treatment algorithms study using HPV testing in Africa (CESTA) in South Africa a consortium involving UKZN, WHO, IARC ) (2019 – 2022); Co-PI in Dual Screening by Spectral Artificial Visual Examination (SAVE) for Female Genital Schistosomiasis (FGS) and cervical cancer (DUAL-SAVE-FGS), a consortium involving UKZN, Durban University of Technology (DUT) and Centre for Bilharzia and Tropical Health Research (CBTHR) (South Africa), Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (Mozambique), University of Eswatini (Eswatini), University of Copenhagen (Denmark), Universitetet iAgder and Oslo University (Norway), QCELL IKE (Greece) (2022 – 2025) and Co-PI in Healthcare Professionals’ Compassion Fatigue and Associated Effects of Caring for Patients with COVID-19 in Selected Hospitals in Durban and Mthatha, South Africa (2022 – 2024).

He is Member of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) International Development Peer Review College, BMC Women’s Health Journal Peer Reviewer and Global Burden of Diseases Collaborator. Additionally, member of the Expert Writing group for Palliative Care National Guideline, National Department of Health, South Africa. He member of the Expert writing Group for the National Lung cancer Screening guidelines, National Department of Health for South Africa. Also collaborated on many multidisciplinary projects in South Africa and beyond, including an ongoing HPV vaccine roll-out in Eswatini and Cervical Cancer Elimination research project. He led the Burden of HPV infection and HPV-related conditions among sexually active women in the Kingdom of ESwatini: its implications during the era of HIV epidemic research (Lead PI). He worked on a Clinical Trial on Cervical cancer Screening and Treatment algorithms study using HPV testing in Africa in KZN as Co-PI. Additionally, he developed the South African Rotavirus surveillance system; previously worked in planning, monitoring and evaluation of HIV/AIDS programmes, coordination of HIV/AIDS research projects in ESwatini and South Africa, managing and analysing hospital mining data for monitoring admissions and out-patients related to Influenza and pneumonia infections. Finally, he has an international working experience in countries like Malawi, Philippines, Kingdom of ESwatini and Finland.

Kennedy Nyamande was born in the city of Gweru, in Zimbabwe. He studied for his undergraduate medical degree at the University of Zimbabwe and subsequently served his internship in 1990 and 1991 at the Harare and Parirenyatwa group of hospitals. He relocated to South Africa at the end of his internship, and worked in the Eastern Cape province in 1992 and 1993 at Nompumelelo hospital, rural Peddie. During that time he studied for his MRCP Part I which he passed while working as a District Medical Officer in Peddie. He then joined the Department of Internal Medicine, University of Natal, in January 1994 as a Registrar and passed his FCP (SA) examinations in October 1996. He then worked as a senior registrar while completing his training time in internal medicine. Upon completion, he then joined the Department of Pulmonology in January 1998 under the mentorship of Prof UG Lalloo. He wrote and passed his Certificate Pulmonology examinations in October 1999, qualifying as a Pulmonologist. In 2001, he registered for his PhD with the University of Natal, completing the degree in 2004 and graduating April 2005. He has been involved in teaching and training of both undergraduates and post graduates since 1998. He deputized Prof Lalloo in the Department of pulmonology for years and was acting Head of Internal Medicine for two years in 2012 and 2013.

He has been involved in both undergraduate and post graduate curriculum development as well as research. In addition, he is very active in the teaching and training of medical students on the Cuba -South Africa Collaboration programme. He briefly left the employment of the University of KwaZulu Natal between 2014 and 2017, rejoining in 2018 as HOD, Pulmonology. Throughout his academic and service career, he has shown great interest in HIV medicine in general and pulmonary complications in particular as well as community acquired pneumonia. He is currently involved in the following research projects:

  1. COVID 19 surveillance
  2. COVID 19 mechanisms
  3. Asthma control and barriers to control
  4. Extra pulmonary pleural tuberculosis
  5. MLCCP lung cancer project
  6. Lung function sequelae of COVID 19

Obstructive Sleep Apnoea diagnostics

Prof Kennedy Nyamande

Dr Khumbulani Hlongwana

Dr Khumbulani Hlongwana, a PhD graduate in Public Health, is a Senior Lecturer and a Social Scientist in the Discipline of Public Health Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), experienced in teaching, supervising and conducting research, using qualitative and mixed-methods approaches, with over a dozen Masters and PhD students supervised to completion since 2018. He has nearly 20 years of research experience across diverse disease spectrum, covering HIV and AIDS, malaria and cancer, culminating in over 50 publications in peer-reviewed international and local journals, more than 60% of which are published in journals with Quintile One (Q1) Ranking. His research, teaching and supervision experience has enhanced his skills in postgraduate curriculum development and research capacity-building, as he runs several workshops to capacitate research supervisors and postgraduate students. He is currently part of the Task Team negotiating the collaboration between the Faculty of Medicine at Lund University (Sweden), the Discipline of Public Health Medicine (DPHM) and Health Economics & HIV/AIDS Research Division (HEARD) at University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) and also leading the Task Team that is developing the curriculum for Socio-Behavioural Stream (SBS) for a Master of Public Health Programme. In November 2021, he was invited by the University of Pretoria Faculty of Health Sciences to run a webinar on “The Use of Qualitative Research in Trials”.

Dr Hlongwana is a Co-PI and PI in several projects, including:

  • Co-PI in Multinational Lung Cancer Control Programme (MLCCP) involving Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Eswatini, Lesotho and Ethiopia (2017 – 2023);
  • Co-PI in Cervical Cancer Prevention, Access and Control (CCPAC) Programme in Zululand District, KwaZulu-Natal, through a Consortium of Health Systems Trust (HST), Genius Quality (GQ), Department of Health (DOH) and Cancer and Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Research Unit (CIDERU) (2022 – 2024);
  • Co-PI and a Leader of one Work Package in Dual Screening by Spectral Artificial Visual Examination (SAVE) for Female Genital Schistosomiasis (FGS) and cervical cancer (DUAL-SAVE-FGS), a consortium involving UKZN, Durban University of Technology (DUT) and Centre for Bilharzia and Tropical Health Research (CBTHR) (South Africa), Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (Mozambique), University of Eswatini (Eswatini), University of Copenhagen (Denmark), Universitetet i Agder and Oslo University (Norway), QCELL IKE (Greece) (2022 – 2025);
  • Lead PI in Healthcare Professionals’ Compassion Fatigue and Associated Effects of Caring for Patients with COVID-19 in Selected Hospitals in Durban and Mthatha, South Africa (2022 – 2024):

Dr Hlongwana was an investigator in a study titled “From malaria control to sustainable elimination: cluster randomised trial comparing targeted versus generalised vector control in South Africa” (TIRS), which involved the DOH, Wits University, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) and the UKZN (2014 – 2017) and currently an investigator in a study titled “A multi-site, open-label non-inferiority trial to assess immunogenicity of two doses of the nonavalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine among children, adolescents and young adults (9-26 years) living with HIV vs three doses of nonavalent HPV vaccine among HIV uninfected young women (15-26 years) in Eswatini”, involving partners in Eswatini, USA and SA.

Dr Hlongwana has presented his work and also chaired sessions in various local and international conferences and served in Local Scientific Committee (LSC) for the 6th Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM Conference) held in Durban (06–11 October 2013), Regional Malaria Control Commission (RMCC) of the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative (LSDI–a malaria control collaboration involving Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa) (2007-2011), Programme Review Panellist for Malaria Control Programmes (2008 – 2009). He has peer-reviewed for reputable journals, such as, Malaria Journal, Global Health Action, PLOS One, and BMJ Open and an external examiner and moderator for several Universities. He is a member of Biomedical Research Ethics Committee (2016 – to date) and served in the Executive of South African National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (SANCA – Durban) (2013 – 2015). He was part of the Expert Writing Group (EWG) commissioned by the National Department of Health to develop Lung Cancer Care Guidelines. He was also part of the Regional Task Team that developed Malaria Advocacy and Communication Framework (2010-2015) for SADC Member States. In 2018, Dr Hlongwana was invited by the South Africa’s National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI) to join the panel developing a country’s ten-year foresight for the Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) aligned to the National Development Plan (NDP). He is one of the co-founders of the Early and Mid-Career Academic Platform (EMAP), a structure set to build new critical mass in the academic sphere and more recently, collaborated with colleagues to establish CIDERU.

Nkosana Jafta is a Lecturer and Researcher in the Discipline of Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). He is also a co-PI in the MLCPP project that informed and shaped the establishment of CIDERU. As of March 2022, Nkosana Jafta is an Academic Leader of Research in the School of Nursing and Public Health.

Nkosana teaches in both the undergraduate and post-graduate programmes offered by the discipline and the School Nursing and Public Health. His research interests are in Environmental and Cancer Epidemiology. The focus of environmental epidemiology is (i) Environmental Exposure Assessment, (iii) Environmental Exposure Modelling and (ii) Exposure and Risk Methodology. 

Nkosana Jafta has successfully obtained competitive grants and scholarships from NIH Fogarty International, South African TB and HIV/Aids Training (SATBAT), South African Netherlands Programme on Alternative Development (SANPAD), the University of KwaZulu-Natal Research Grant, among others. As part of the co-principal investigator in research collaboration, he has been part of funding applications that resulted in more than a total of R50 million for different studies that include MLCCP, OrCHID, HeALTH study, etc.

Nkosana Jafta has published in peer-reviewed journals, presented work in national and international meetings, and published a book chapter from one of the conference proceedings published. He occasionally reviews submissions to journals and scientific meetings. Nkosana Jafta has supervised and co-supervisor to completion of full-research Masters and Doctoral students working on environmental epidemiology with emphasis on air pollution and cancer epidemiology. His research collaborations include local and international institutions, namely the South African Medical Research Council, Gothenburg University (GU) in Sweden and the University of Michigan (UM) in the USA.

Dr Nkosana Jafta

Mr Siyabonga Dlamini

Mr Dlamini holds a Master of Public Health degree (MPH) and has worked on a number of projects, as a Researcher at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Discipline of Public Health Medicine). He is highly experienced in the area of behaviour change, including the development of HIV/AIDS and STI interventions focusing on prevention, and gender-based violence prevention. He has also been involved in programme evaluation studies in the province. He has also led research field teams and coordinated research studies. He is also a lecturer in the discipline at the postgraduate level. Mr Dlamini has authored and co-authored articles in peer-reviewed journals. He also coordinated one of the highly sought-after Research Capacity Initiative (SANPAD RCI) programmes in the country funded by the Dutch Foreign Ministry for a number of years until its closure in 2013. He was also part of the team that was working on the Hospital Management Mentorship Programme (Partnership between National Department of health, Italian Corporation, Wits University, and UKZN). Mr Dlamini’s interests are in intervention development, epidemiology, research supervision, and teaching and learning in the field of public health. He is one of the Co-Principal Investigators working on the Multinational Lung Cancer Control Programme (MLCCP) in KwaZulu-Natal. This project received a multimillion-rand funding from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation and is currently setting up a unit in Addington Hospital in Durban. He is currently completing his PhD studies in the field of Public Health. He currently supervises postgraduate students enrolled in the Master of Public Health (MPH) and Masters in Medical Sciences (MMed Sci) degree programmes.