The fellowship is designed to empower emerging leaders with essential knowledge, skills, and leadership techniques to effectively address Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), malaria, and polio.
As stated by Sightsavers on Tuesday, the fellowship will facilitate Imhansoloeva’s research on river blindness in Angola. This disease, known scientifically as onchocerciasis, initially manifests as painful skin irritation, inflammation, and itching. If not treated, the parasite responsible can migrate to the eye, resulting in permanent vision loss.
The World Health Organization estimates that over 246 million individuals globally are at risk of this condition.
Imhansoloeva's research will focus on collecting data regarding the blackflies that transmit the disease, which is crucial for assessing progress toward its elimination.
The Injaz Fellowship will enhance his educational journey through courses aimed at equipping him with the knowledge and leadership skills necessary to make significant advancements in combating NTDs, malaria, and polio.
Since joining Sightsavers in 2019, Imhansoloeva has dedicated his research efforts to NTDs.
His previous work includes enhancing the reporting of mass drug administration data for NTDs, raising awareness and improving treatment for female genital schistosomiasis in Nigeria, and developing better trapping techniques for the blackfly responsible for river blindness in Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Malawi, and Mozambique.
According to him, “Angola continues to grapple with river blindness, a disease that causes painful skin irritation and can lead to permanent blindness. While regular community-wide drug campaigns are now being rolled out, we have little data on the transmission dynamics of the blackfly that spreads the disease. I will use the Injaz Fellowship to close this knowledge gap.”
On his part, the CEO of GLIDE, Simon Bland, said, “The Injaz Fellowship provides future leaders with an opportunity to expand their research and build on their knowledge and specialist skills in disease elimination.
Developing future leaders is an essential component of disease elimination, and I look forward to seeing how the winning individuals advance efforts in their countries and become agents of change in their respective fields.”
The statement further noted that the remaining three successful projects concentrate on rabies, trachoma, and improving the implementation of NTD initiatives for women and at-risk groups across regions in Australasia and Africa.
“The Injaz Fellowship is an innovative programme designed to advance global efforts to eliminate and eradicate infectious diseases. The focus diseases for this fellowship are Neglected Tropical Diseases, malaria, and polio. The fellowship aims to enhance fellows’ expertise in disease elimination and eradication, enabling them to contribute first to their countries and then to global health through research and policy advocacy.
“By concentrating efforts on diseases that significantly affect underserved populations, the Injaz Fellowship will be an important platform to promote global health equity and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Additionally, the Fellowship is strategically aligned with GLIDE’s mission to address the critical demand for skilled professionals in disease elimination to achieve the ambitious elimination goals for 2030 and beyond.
“The winning individuals were selected based on their contribution to disease elimination, project proposals, and leadership potential to address capacity strengthening, implementation excellence, and global health diplomacy needs within disease elimination,” it noted.