Fred Mhalu

Fred Mhalu is a microbiologist and medical researcher from Tanzania. His main area of study revolves around infectious diseases and intervention. Ever since 1986, he has been a main contributor to the information about AIDS in Africa. As a co-coordinator of a Tanzanian-Swedish research collaboration called TANSWED, he was involved in many research projects that lead to multiple publications in medical journals.

Education Mhalu trained in medicine at Makerere University College Medical School in Kampala, Uganda. He continued training pathology, microbiology, and immunology at various universities, including the University of Ibadan Nigeria, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School at London University. In 2003, Mhalu was awarded an honorary Doctorate at Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

Career

Early career Mhalu was a professor at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, a Dean of the School of Medicine, and the Director of Postgraduate Studies and Research at Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences (MUCHS) in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Before working on AIDS, Mhalu largely focused his studies on communicable diseases and intervention tactics. He was the lead researcher on Tanzania's cholera outbreak. In 1986, his career path shifted and he started researching AIDS prevalence among barmaids in Dar Es Salaam, which had similar trends of transmission to cases in Uganda. Mhalu was a co-coordinator for TANSWED, an HIV/AIDS research program, with Professor Gunnel Biberfeld from Sweden since 1986. Through this conference, Thabo Mbeki wanted to get answers from questions, like the pathology of AIDS and prevention, to assist with governmental responses to the epidemic. Mhalu did not attend the conference in Durban, South Africa. In response to this stance by the president of South Africa, five-thousand scientists, including Mhalu, published the Durban Declaration. These scientists were anxious that AIDS denialism presented by Thabo Mbeki would contribute to more AIDS cases and deaths in HIV-prevalence countries, since prevention strategies like condom usage and blood screening would not be encouraged. The trial is sponsored by Thai and United States government, and has received some criticism by Dennis Burton and colleagues. Mhalu recognized benefit from this clinical trial because of its contribution to gain knowledge on HIV vaccination development.

TANSWED Started in 1986 by collaboration of Mhalu and Biberfeld, TANSWED, a Tanzanian and Swedish HIV/AIDS program, is a bilateral project aimed at collecting information about HIV infections in Tanzania. In 1987, this program launched a research project in Kagera Region called KARP (Kagera AIDS Research Project) to study HIV prevalence in blood samples among adults. TANSWED has supported the research of many Tanzanian scientists, including Japhet Killewo

As a co-coordinator of the program, Mhalu made large contributions to many projects within TANSWED, as well participating in meetings to evaluate and improve the program overall. In 1988, Mhalu attended the 3rd International Conference on AIDS in Africa in Arusha, Tanzania and served as a chair member. Acceptability of voluntary HIV testing with counseling in a rural village in Kagera, Tanzania, a pilot study. Alternative confirmatory strategies in HIV-1 antibody testing. Clinical case definition of AIDS in African adults. Decline in the prevalence of HIV-1 infection in young women in the Kagera region of Tanzania. Late postnatal transmission of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection from mothers to infants in Dar Es Salaam.