Kalifa Bojang studied medicine at University of Zambia, qualifying in 1984. He trained in paediatrics at Guys Hospital, London; Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London and St Luke University Hospital, Brussels, Belgium. He undertook a PhD with Sir Brian Greenwood at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Hygiene on the chemoprevention of anaemia. After training in UK, he worked at the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital from 1992-1995. He was awarded a Rockefeller Training Fellowship in 1993 to study the management of severe malaria anaemia. He joined the MRC Unit in 1995 as research clinician in the malaria programme. He was Head of Basse Field between 1999-2000 then again 2005-2007, working on various descriptive and intervention studies relating to child health, especially malaria. In 2003, he was awarded a Gates Malaria Partnership fellowship to investigate whether monthly chemoprevention with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) given during the malaria transmission season can protect children treated previously for severe anaemia from developing a recurrence of their anaemia. He is vice-president of The Gambian Chapter of the West African College of Physicians and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, UK. Since January 2011, he has been seconded to University of The Gambia to head of the paediatric department of the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital. He is a member of the WHO IVR/Global Malaria Programme Joint Technical Expert Group (JTEG) on Malaria Vaccines Entering Pivotal Phase 3 Trials.
Research
He has worked extensively on malaria vaccine trials and seasonal malaria chemoprevention for the control of malaria. Other interests include evaluation of safety and efficacy of antimalarial drugs and various epidemiological studies.
He has been PI on a number of important clinical trials and these include:
- First efficacy trial of a artemisinin based combination treatments for uncomplicated malaria in sub-Saharan Africa (Co-PI) [von Seidlein L ., Am J Trop Med Hyg. 1998]
- First efficacy trial of RTS,S in a malaria endemic country, the most advance malaria candidate vaccine. The trial showed that RTS,S provided an efficacy of 65% against first infection in semi-immune adults during the first 2 months after 3 doses of vaccine in semi-immune adult males. As a result of findings from this trial, clinical development of RTS,S in children was initiated (PI) [Bojang et al., Lancet 2001]
- The largest ever clinical trial in children hospitalised with severe malaria that showed that compared to the standard treatment with quinine, artesunate reduced mortality by around a quarter in children with severe malaria. As a result of findings from this trial WHO has now recommended that artesunate should replace quinine as the treatment of choice in children with severe malaria (site PI) [Dondorp et al., Lancet 2010]
- A large cluster -randomised control trial to compare two strategies for the delivery of seasonal malaria chemoprevetion in The Gambia (PI) [Bojang et al., PLoS Med. 2011]
- A large efficacy trial that investigated whether monthly chemoprevention with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) given during the malaria transmission season could protect children from developing a recurrence of their anaemia (PI) [Bojang et al., PLoS One. 2010]
Research areas
- Child health
- Clinical trials
- Malaria
- Public Health
