Dr Ambrose Otau Talisuna, MBchB, Msc, DLSHTM, PhD

Ambrose completed his medical degree at Makerere University in 1992 and his Masters in Epidemiology from the University of London (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) in 1996.

He was awarded a PhD from the University of Antwerp and Institute of Tropical Medicine for his work on the intensity of transmission and spread of antimalarial drug resistance in 2004. Between 1996 and 2011, Ambrose held senior management, leadership and scientific positions with the Uganda Ministry of Health, the Institute of Tropical Medicine and the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV).

He has been a field coordinator for a multi-country malaria clinical trial whose data supported the registration of Euratesim, by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). He received a senior fellowship in 2007 from the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) for capacity strengthening for pharmacovigilance of antimalarial drugs in Africa.

Between 2011 and Early, 2016, he was regional scientific director for East Africa of the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN) and later senior clinical research fellow with the University of Oxford-KEMRI Wellcome Trust Programme in Nairobi, Kenya. In 2016, Ambrose joined the World Health Organisation, regional office for Africa, as regional advisor for health security and International Health Regulations.

He is currently the Programme Management Manager for Emergency Preparedness and the lead for Preparedness on the Incident Management Support Team (IMST) for the COVID 19 pandemic response in the WHO Africa Region. At WHO, Ambrose is spearheading the efforts to build and sustain core capacities to better prevent, detect and respond to infectious disease epidemics and other public health threats before they spread.

Elizeus Rutebemberwa, Associate Professor, School of Public Health Makerere University

Elizeus Rutebemberwa is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy, Planning and Management at the School of Public Health, College of Health Sciences, Makerere University.

He is a medical doctor by training and specialized in public health at Masters level on a field epidemiology training program / public health schools without walls. He did a PhD in international health from Karolinska Institutet - Sweden. During his time practising clinical medicine, he worked as Hospital Director and District Health Manager in Kamuli District, Eastern Uganda.

At University, he has been a field coordinator for the Masters of Public Health, visiting lecturer to the Kenya and Nigeria Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Programs, site leader for the Iganga-Mayuge Demographic Surveillance Site, Chair of the department and Principal Investigator of the population based Uganda National TB survey 2014 – 2016.

Currently, he teaches Monitoring and Evaluation, Health systems and Policy, and Leadership and Management in health. His research activities are related to policy implementation challenges, using mHealth in collecting data on risk factors of non-communicable diseases, access to health care for febrile children and the interface between zoonotic diseases and health care systems. He has publications ranging from systematic reviews to original research reports using qualitative or quantitative data collection methods (cross sectional surveys, prospective studies and randomised controlled trials).

He has supervised PhD and Masters’ students. He is currently an associate editor / academic editor for two journals.

Professor Honoré Kabwebwe Mitonga

Professor Honoré Kabwebwe Mitonga is a PhD holder in Public Health from the University of Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo; His educational background includes Bachelor of Science in Mathematical Statistics (Hons), Master Degree in Public Health and PhD in Public health obtained from the University of Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He is the inaugural and current Associate Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Namibia and an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the School of Public Health, University of Namibia. He has robust theoretical and practical skills in statistics, Bio Statistics, Applied Statistics, Mathematical statistic, Econometrics, Quantitative methods, Operations Research (Linear programming, graphs theory, Mathematical Queuing theory …), Demography, Epidemiology, Public Health and Development, Health Economics, Health Management, Projects analysis, planning, monitoring and evaluation, Statistics’ software e.g. SPSS, Epiinfo, SAS, R, STATA, DAD for poverty measures, etc..., programming in C# and C++, as well as practical experiences both in academic and non-academic settings.

Honoré Kabwebwe Mitonga has worked in various non-academic and academic positions where he gained enough experience in implementing Public Health projects, Monitoring, Evaluation and research. Particularly he worked as the Director of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation of AMO CONGO a Public Health NGO in Democratic Republic of Congo recipients of funding from USAID, Global Fund/UNDP, UNICEF, World Bank/MAP, World Vision, DFID, Christian AIDS/UK etc.

He is a member of the Training Programs in Epidemiology and Public Health Interventions Network (TEPHINET) Learning Advisory Council (TEPHINET FLAC); He is also one of the Expert Members of the Social Determinants of Health and Health in All Policy (HiAP) World Health Organization (WHO) collaborative Centre at the University of Pretoria. He has extensively published many papers in refereed journals.

Dr Fred Wabwire-Mangen, Associate Professor, Makerere University School of Public Health

Dr Fred Wabwire-Mangen is an Associate Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH) where he has served for the last 30 years including 7 years as Director of the then Institute of Public Health prior to its transition to the School of Public Health.

Dr Wabwire-Mangen was trained in Human Medicine at Makerere University (MBChB -1982), in Tropical Medicine at Liverpool University (DTMH&H – 1985) and as an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (MPH -1987; PhD -1994). At MakSPH, Fred has a 3-fold mandate of training, research and community service.

His teaching responsibilities have included infectious disease epidemiology, health services research and quality of health care. As a researcher, Dr Wabwire-Mangen has over 30 years of conducting research on endemic, emerging and re-emerging diseases of public health importance in Uganda including malaria, STIs, HIV/AIDS, influenza and other emerging infections.

His clinical trials experience includes; a cluster randomized trial on STD control for AIDS prevention and an individual randomized controlled trial on male circumcision for HIV prevention as a co-investigator at the Rakai Health Sciences Project, and as co-investigator of a Phase I and a Phase II-a HIV vaccine trial at the Makerere University Walter Reed Project.

In addition, Dr Fred Wabwire-Mangen has a strong background facilitating implementation science and translational research. He has published widely on infectious diseases and public health in peer-reviewed journals.