Dumisile Nkosi has been awarded the Institute for Global Health master’s scholarship to study for a one-year MSc in Vaccinology and Drug Development at the University of Siena.  

‘This MSc is a dream-come-true for me and I am especially grateful for this opportunity which will mostly help to boost the number of vaccinologists in Malawi at such a critical COVID-19 era. I have also been most amazed by how much my supervisory team, the training and development committee, and staff at the institution were quick to offer their support throughout my MSc application process. MSc applications have become more and more competitive, and I am grateful that I had support, especially on days that I felt like giving up. I am really excited for the next training chapter”, expressed Dumisile Nkosi.

Dumisile Nkosi joined MLW in September 2020 as a CORE Pre-Master intern through the Malaria Epidemiology Group (now the Infectious Diseases Epidemiology group), supervised by Dr. Anja (DJ) Terlouw, Dr. Clifford Banda, and Prof Karen Barnes (University of Cape Town) 

Her pilot project was focused on understanding the burden of malaria in infancy where she was following up infants born from the IMPROVE DDI study (PENETRATE study Grant), whose mothers were receiving dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (DP) as part of prevention of malaria in pregnancy, for the development of malaria in infancy. This work has informed a clinical trial on the chemoprevention of malaria in infancy. 

She attests to the fact that the pre-master internship gave her skills in research conduct, data analysis, critical thinking, academic writing, and presentation skills through interaction with her supervisory team, the Malaria Epidemiology group, and various departments at the institution, all of which are needed for her to excel during her training. 

Keep soaring, Dumisile!!