Our research contributed
towards improving health care for HIV and TB patients in South Africa by
researching various factors which contributes to the effective and efficient
care and delivery of care to patients in the public health care sector. We have
been involved with developing clinic improvement plans within numerous KZN
facilities both in the urban and rural settings. We also develop materials and
SOPs for:
- Viral Load Monitoring
- High Viral Load management
- Data management and file hygiene
We are the
conference secretariat and present seminars at AWACC (Annual Workshop in
Advanced Clinical Care – AIDS & TB. AWACC
is an annual conference providing updates in clinical management and public
health programmes for HIV and TB. It includes presentations from local and
international experts. It is attend by over 500 delegates from various
countries and health care worker from both the private and public sector in
South Africa. We have a strong presence (over 80%) from doctors, nurses,
hospital management and other health care worker from the South African
department of health.
In
addition to the impact we have to patients, healthcare systems and society
through our research and various training activities, we are also significantly
engaged in numerous community projects where we give freely of our time,
expertise and resources.
A few are listed below.
TB heroes’ project -
We partnered with The Sentinel Project, The Health Ninja, and Umduduzi to
celebrate the treatment supporters for children living with TB. We conduced
workshops to train and inform the supporters of advances in TB management.
- Self-defense workshop
for women – We partnered with an organization we sponsor, IFFSKSA
(International Federation of Funakoshi Shotokan South Africa) and Virgin Active
to provide a free self-defense workshop for women.
- Annual children’s
Christmas party – we choose a children’s home each year, where we host a
Christmas party with gifts, meals, entertainment and fun activities.
- KZN Kids with kidney
disease Christmas party – we have been fortunate to help plan and participate
in the Christmas party for children afflicted with kidney disease.
Our
commitment to community is further emphasised through the various Adrenergy
funded training programmes and internships we provide free of charge to
learners. Our medical research training programme is a year long training which
we have conducted over the last 4 years. The programme trains on average 15
graduate students per year. The intention is to develop and promote research
culture amongst young individuals who intend to pursue a career in medical
research. We train and equip individuals with the correct research practices to
increase their chances of employment within our organization, partner
organizations and other research bodies and to facilitate community outreach by
giving back to our local communities in aid of developing the next generation
of local researchers. We go further by offering interns the opportunity to gain
experience in research by allowing them to participate on existing research
projects at Adrenergy. Research interns are mentored by academics and have the
opportunity to interact with leaders in HIV and TB research from Harvard
University, Emory University as well as several local leading universities, who
all serve as members on our science advisory board.
We have
engaged with numerous community, research public sector and non-governmental
organisations and have partnered with many of them on a variety of projects.
Our commitment to share our knowledge and resources find us actively seeking
out opportunities to give back to the communities in which we work.
KZN has
the largest population of HIV infected participants and the largest ARV
programme in the world. By engaging and creating a network with US colleagues,
we are able to attract international funding to provide employment to South
African researchers, academics, student and healthcare workers on a variety of infectious
diseases research studies. At the same time we are bringing in expertise to
develop local capacity and skills. All this translates to the improvement in
the healthcare of South African patients and providing a measure impact in the
public healthcare system.
In short
our organisation through both its business practice and social impact community
projects has had immense community engagement and lead to society upliftment in
many facets.