Professor Malegapuru William Makgoba (right), the Vice Chancellor and Principal of UKZN, presents William R. Bishai with a photograph to commemorate the announcement of Bishai's appointment as director of (K-RITH).

Photo: Rajesh Jantilal

The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) yesterday announced the appointment of William R. Bishai, M.D., Ph.D., as the first permanent director of the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV (K-RITH).

K-RITH is the result of a partnership between UKZN and HHMI to create an international center for research and training in South Africa, at the very heart of the HIV and TB epidemics.

South Africa has more residents infected with HIV than any other nation in the world – an estimated 5.7 million by 2008—and it also has one of the highest per capita rates of tuberculosis in the world. The two epidemics drive and reinforce one another: HIV activates dormant TB in a person, who then becomes infectious and able to spread the TB bacillus to others. It is now increasingly recognized that only through combined and coordinated efforts for both TB and HIV can this dual epidemic be halted.

K-RITH builds on work begun by Dr. Bruce Walker and the Harvard Initiative for Global Health. In 2002, a grant to Walker from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation led to the construction of the Doris Duke Medical Research Institute (DDMRI) at UKZN. The new K-RITH facility will be integrated with the existing DDMRI which houses the HIV Pathogenesis Programme (HPP). The new facility will include the bio-safety laboratories necessary for tuberculosis research with construction expected to begin in September.

“K-RITH is a truly novel initiative in global health,” says Bishai. “What’s new and different is that the leadership of HHMI and UKZN believe that basic science – the research that underpins the development of new diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines– needs to occur in areas of high tuberculosis and HIV prevalence. This provides a way forward to raise a future generation of researchers, motivated by the diseases surrounding them, to tackle these very difficult epidemics in Africa and other parts of the world that have so far resisted our traditional approaches.“

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