At Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital. Front, from left: Dr Mary Fanning, Dr Francis Collins,Director of the NIH , Professor Heather Zar, Head of the School of Child and Adolescent Health, Stacy Wallick (Fogarty Institute) and Dr Roger Glass, Director of the Fogarty Institute.

It was a whirlwind visit for Dr Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and several of his colleagues as they embarked on a one-day fact-finding visit to the Faculty on Thursday, 3 March 2011.

The visit included a brief meeting with members of the Deanery, where there was intense discussion on Faculty structure, methodologies and funding. This was followed by a brief, but informative sojourn with members of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, where researchers took the opportunity to speak about their work, some of it funded by agencies of the NIH.

Deputy Dean: Research, Professor Gregory Hussey, then accompanied the group and Professor Robert J. Wilkinson to the Khayelitsha Site B Community Health Care Centre, which is also the site of several Clinical Infectious Diseases Research Initiative (CIDRI) research projects. The delegation paid a visit to the isoniazid Preventive plus antiretroviral therapy study, whereby patients who are on antiretroviral therapy, or are about to begin ARV treatment, join a randomized control study to test the effectiveness of isoniazid in preventing TB disease. The group met Dr Molebogeng Rangaka, a member of the Centre for Infectious Disease and Epidemiology Research (CIDER) in the School of Public Health, who is the lead investigator of this study. She explained the reasons for the study, the method, and the follow-up, which is still being carried out. "We are very excited about this study, which is probably the only one to have evaluated isoniazid in this fashion, and we are confident that it will influence public health policy in South Africa," said Dr Rangaka.

From there, it was short walk to the new prefabricated building that will house the Phase IIb TB vaccine trial, which is due to begin later in 2011. Dr Hanif Esmail, a Wellcome Trust Fellow who is based at UCT, addressed the group, speaking of his PhD research project, entitled "How inactive is "inactive" tuberculosis? PET/CT benchmarking of latent tuberculosis infection", which will be embedded in the TB vaccine trial. The building forms part of an existing refurbishment to the premises, funded by the European Developing Countries Training Programme (EDCTP).

At GF Jooste Hospital in Manenberg, Dr Collins and his team met with Dr Rosie Burton, who took the group through the infectious diseases ward and clinic. They also paid a visit to the casualty unit, which is currently being refurbished. Dr Charlotte Schutz spent a few minutes explaining the COAT study, which aims to decrease the mortality rate in cryptococcal meningitis in HIV-positive people. This is a recently initiated project, which is funded by NIH.

The Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital was the second-last stop on their itinerary, and this included a walk-through of emergency admitting ward and the paediatric intensive care unit and then up to the Institute of Child Health, to meet with Heather Zar, the Head of the School of Child and Adolescent Health, Lelsey Henley, Colleen Adnams, Antony Figaji, Jo Wilmshurst, head of paediatric neurology, Ernesta Meintjies, where NIH-funded projects were discussed, among others. "I was really impressed by them, they were very insightful and asked pertinent questions of the researchers," said Assoc Prof Wilmshurst.

The collaborative Centre of Excellence, Chronic Diseases Initiative in Africa includes the Universities of Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Western Cape, the SA Medical Research Council, the Western Cape provincial government and Shree Hindu Mandal Hospital and Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in Tanzania and Harvard University, USA. It was the final element of the NIH visit and it was clear that the visitors were impressed by the initiative and what it proposes to do.

Professor Dinky Levitt, Director of the Initiative, explained that it "will serve as a regional hub for developing and evaluating models for chronic disease care and prevention of their risk factors."The Initiative aims to reduce the burden of chronic diseases in Africa - we realize this is very ambitious, but what are we without ambition?" she said.

Dr Collins went on to speak at the first Vice-Chancellor's Lecture of 2011 later in the day, with Sir Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust.