Harvard students in KZN for unique HIV cure research internship
A doctor at a local HIV research facility says they hope a joint programme with a top US university will be a long-term exchange of knowledge between local academics and those abroad.
Eight students from Harvard University in Boston have come to KwaZulu-Natal to intern at research sites and laboratories in the province to learn about ongoing work on preventing and curing HIV. They arrived in South Africa earlier this month.
Six of the students have been split between the FRESH clinical research site in Umlazi’s W Section and the University of KZN's Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) on the Berea.
FRESH (Females Rising Through Education, Support and Health) is a unique clinical study that combines HIV cure research with an empowerment programme for young Umlazi women that includes computer and job skills training. The FRESH project is the result of a collaboration between researchers from the Ragon Institute and the University of KZN.
Two of the interns will be based at NGO ITEACH, at Edendale Hospital in Pietermaritzburg.
"The programme is special in that it's not just a one-way experience where we let Harvard students come over here and then go. We also have local interns that are their same age - so they're working side-by-side with their peers here in South Africa.
"So we think that's a really important component of the internship that there's an exchange of knowledge and of experience that goes back and forth and that's cross cultural," says Dong.
“This internship will give me a chance to participate in HIV-research with people who are passionate about developing a cure,” says Mazuba Siamatu – a Zambian, who’s about to enter his third year of studies at Harvard.
"I believe it will be a transformative experience, conducting research at the epicenter of the HIV/AIDS epidemic … under the supervision of scientists who share the same passion towards alleviating the suffering caused by the epidemic as I do," added Siamatu.