Welcome to ourMeet the SDG3 researcherblog collection. We are interviewing a series of academics and practitioners working in diverse fields to achieve可持续发展目标3:确保健康的生活和促进健康all at all ages. You can find other posts in this collection这里,and discover what else Springer Nature is doing to advance progress towards achieving this goal on our dedicatedSDG3中心.

请告诉我们一些关于您自己的信息。

I obtained completed my Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree from the University of Calabar in Nigeria. My first-hand experience of a child succumbing to an antimicrobial resistant infection during my internship year as a fresh medical graduate shaped my interest in Paediatrics and infectious diseases.

I began my residency training in Paediatrics at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, Calabar as well as working as a Clinical Research Assistant in the clinical trials and evidence-based medicine unit at the Hospital’s Institute of Tropical Disease Research & Prevention under the supervision and mentorship of Professor Martin Meremikwu, who was the deputy director of the Institute and my supervising paediatric consultant.

鉴于我在临床研究的浓厚兴趣,专业ssor Meremikwu encouraged me to take up a job opportunity as a Medical Officer at then Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratories, The Gambia, and I relocated to the Gambia in December in 2004. Many African-trained medical doctors migrate to UK and America for postgraduate training and better career opportunities. At some point after moving to The Gambia, I also considered making such a move having grown up with a surgeon for a dad, who also did his postgraduate training in the UK and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. At the same time, I also wanted to contribute to Africa-led research output on the continent having noticed that there were not many African scientists leading research. I owe much of my decision to remain in Africa to Professor Tumani Corrah, the then MRC Unit Director, and his mentorship and passion for development of African scientists. To broaden my research skills, I completed a Master of Science degree in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), funded by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission.

My initial research work focused diseases associated with a high burden on under-five mortality in Africa – malaria, pneumonia, HIV/AIDS and malnutrition.

我很幸运能够与免疫学家阿桑·杰伊（Assan Jaye）博士一起担任研究临床医生，他赢得了伊丽莎白·格拉瑟（Elizabeth Glaser）儿科艾滋病基金会（EGPAF）国际领导奖，以建立儿科艾滋病毒/艾滋病临床研究同胞。在全球基金会对艾滋病，结核病，疟疾和EGPAF作战的资金支持下，我在乌干达和英国接受了综合儿科艾滋病毒/艾滋病护理，预防和研究的培训。这项培训为我提供了与国家艾滋病秘书处合作，在冈比亚建立国家儿科艾滋病毒/艾滋病队列的知识和技能，以通过临床指导提高临床护理和研究能力。

Whilst on secondment to the Department of Paediatrics, Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital, Banjul, The Gambia, I was alarmed by the number of neonatal in-patient deaths on the neonatal ward and led the first ever audit of quality of facility-based neonatal care and outcomes. Our findings confirmed a very high burden of neonatal mortality (35% of all neonatal admissions) at the teaching hospital and only neonatal unit in the country. The audit also quantified the contribution of neonatal sepsis to neonatal admissions and mortality and highlighted the mismatch of treatment and investigations: over 94% of all neonatal admissions received antibiotics yet only 2% are investigated for the presence of infection.

这些观察结果导致了几个问题，这些问题导致了我通过英国医学研究委员会的博士生资助的LSHTM的流行病学和人口健康博士学位。我的博士研究重点是新生儿感染，传播动力学和医院/社区获得了新生儿感染，包括抗菌素抗性。我受到了该领域的两名令人难以置信的女研究人员和领导者的监督 - 乔伊·拉恩（Joy Lawn）和鲍德·坎普曼（Beate Kampmann）教授。我的成功归功于这些妇女及其指导。

There yet remain many unanswered questions about the source of, and dynamics of acquisition of serious infections in newborns, particularly in low-resource settings. For my postdoctoral research I am now driven to push the envelope and move my research from the observational to a detailed understanding of mechanisms of infection and antimicrobial resistance transmission to improve care underpinned by scientific evidence. My research is funded by the Thrasher Research Fund (USA) and The MRC/NIHR (UK) amongst others. I also work closely with the Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital, Banjul, and the Ministry of Health of The Gambia, whilst expanding my research collaborations.

我的一些职业亮点包括赢得2019 Elsevier Foundation-OWSD Award in Agriculture, Biology and Medicine for Early Career Women Scientists in the Developing World; the2019 Director’s Award for “Research Leader of Tomorrow” , MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM; the LSHTM Antimicrobial Resistance Centre Publication Prize in both2020and2021; and serving as冈比亚分会董事长兼西非医师学院副校长.

您的工作与SDG3有何关系？

My research is directly related to SDG3 which aims to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. Specifically, my research falls under SDG 3.2 which aims by 2030 to end preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years of age, with all countries aiming to reduce neonatal mortality to at least as low as 12 per 1,000 live births and under-5 mortality to at least as low as 25 per 1,000 live births.

据估计，新生儿感染占全球240万例新生儿死亡的26％，撒哈拉以南非洲（SSA）的患病率和死亡风险最高，尤其是西非和中非。如果没有大量降低该地区感染特异性的新生儿死亡率，就无法满足新生儿死亡率的可持续发展目标指标。

Robust country and regional data on the aetiology, source and route of infection, as well as antimicrobial resistance (AMR), are essential to informing and prioritising appropriate prevention strategies. In one of my studies, I aimed to bridge a在撒哈拉以南非洲的新生儿中，我们了解侵入性细菌感染和抗菌素抗性的原因的危险差距.

Different risk factors and environments may affect transmission of infection to the newborn. To address additional questions regarding routes of infection transmission among newborns with bacterial sepsis, my research is now combining traditional microbiological bacterial culture techniques with advanced techniques, particularly whole-genome sequencing (WGS). In one of our studies, we used both techniques to characterise two outbreaks of hospital-acquired infection in the neonatal ward, andtraced the source of infection to intravenous fluids and medications that were contaminated on the ward during preparation for use.

What’s the most pressing research question in your field and/or your hopes for progress in the future?

尽管全球新生儿死亡率下降，但各地区和国家之间的新生儿死亡率存在明显的差异。2019年，世界两个地区（撒哈拉以南非洲和南亚）占新生儿死亡的80％以上。在这些地区，新生儿死亡率最高，据估计，撒哈拉以南非洲的1000例活产27例，南亚的每千例活产25例死亡。一个在撒哈拉以南非洲的孩子是在第一个月死亡的可能性比在高收入国家出生的孩子高10倍.

Neonatal infections are responsible for 1.6 times the global number of childhood deaths as malaria, and over four times the number of childhood deaths caused by HIV. Neonatal infections also pose a massive public health and economic burden for sub-Saharan Africa, amounting to an estimated annual loss of 5.29–8.73 million disability-adjusted life years (DALY). Because sub-Saharan Africa bears a disproportionate burden of neonatal deaths, we cannot achieve SDG 3 without substantial reduction of infection-specific neonatal mortality in the region. Critical to any successful policy decisions and interventions to reduce the burden of neonatal infection, therefore, are strategic investment in high-quality data, reliable identification of causative pathogens, and thorough understanding of transmission dynamics.

报道了撒哈拉以南非洲新生儿感染的致病病原体广泛抗药性，对谁推荐的一线和二线抗生素以及有限的药物选择，对公共卫生构成了严重威胁，并成功治疗了新生儿感染。

The COVID pandemic has shone the spotlight on how interconnected and interdependent our world has become. It has also illustrated our common vulnerability, across borders, beyond North-South, East-West, public-private divides, and the limits of segmented approached to tackling global public health. This means adopting a more holistic and comprehensive multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to addressing our collective challenges, and specifically in my case, the high burden of neonatal infection morbidity and mortality. Despite the disruption of maternal, newborn, and child health services across resource-limited settings in additional to the ripple effect on neonatal mortality, I strongly believe the COVID pandemic to be a turning point for infectious disease epidemiology in sub-Saharan Africa; it has presented new opportunities for local and regional scientific leadership to address the unresolved burden on neonatal mortality, especially but not limited to infections and antimicrobial resistance.

请描述您职业生涯中遇到的障碍

鉴于医学和科学所需的长期培训，临床医生的概念在西非并不常见，而且我的专业（女性少得多）几乎没有榜样。我已经改变了现状，并将继续为非洲女性临床研究人员推动标准。但是，将临床研究与学术生涯，临床工作以及领导/行政责任以及作为父母的职责相结合，这是一项艰巨的挑战。尽管我真的很喜欢自己的工作，但在精神上和身体上始终保持平衡行为，这在身体和身体上都在耗尽，我必须不时地提醒自己，我也需要在心理和身体上照顾自己！幸运的是，我在职业生涯的每个阶段都得到了导师和朋友，他们提供了急需的360°支持。

请告诉我们有关特别启发您的资源或个人？

My greatest inspiration comes from home – my parents. My dad is a surgeon and my mother a medical microbiologist, although both are now retired. They came from very poor and humble beginnings but did not let this limit their dreams and aspirations. Growing up, my brothers and I loved to listen to the stories of how they worked hard and persevered to achieve their dreams despite numerous challenges. They also encouraged us to be inquisitive and explore our environment. My dad would always say to us ‘nothing is impossible – it just hasn’t been figured out yet’.

You can find other posts in this collection这里.

At Springer Nature we are committed to playing our role in advancing progress towards achieving SDG3 by both supporting researchers and being an active voice, promoting an interdisciplinary evidenced-based approach to all targets and indicators within this goal.了解有关我们的更多信息SDG3 activitiesand thebob游戏平台Springer Nature SDG计划.