AfOx Travel Grant recipient wins the Greenwood Africa Award 2019

Dr Richard Idro is a Senior Lecturer at Makerere University and an Honorary Fellow at Oxford University’s Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health. He was been awarded the inaugural Greenwood Africa Award this year.  

In 2018, Dr Idro received an AfOx Travel Grant to form a new collaboration between The Ethox Centre at the University of Oxford, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust at Kilifi, Kenya and Makerere University.  

A group of researchers from the three institutions studied the cause and treatment of nodding syndrome. Nodding syndrome (NS) is a neurological condition that affects children between the ages of 5 and 15 years old, causing progressive cognitive dysfunction, neurological deterioration, stunted growth and a characteristic nodding of the head. It is poorly understood, affecting thousands of children in South Sudan, northern Uganda and south Tanzania.

Dr Idro also used the travel grant to develop a community engagement plan to raise awareness of nodding syndrome and other mental health conditions that are misunderstood with communities. He also used the opportunity to enhance research capacities in Uganda.  

Dr Idro will receive the award at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where he will also deliver the The Greenwood Lecture titled ‘Severe Malaria, Nodding Syndrome and Wisdom Teeth’.