Mozambique

Dr. Mandomando is the Senior Researcher & Coordinator of Diarrheal Disease Research Area and Laboratory Advisor in the Manhiça Health Research Center (CISM) in Mozambique. Dr. Mandomando completed his undergraduate studies in 1999 in Veterinary Medicine at Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique. Shortly after graduating, he joined CISM in 2000. He completed his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences (Microbiology) in 2009 at University of Barcelona, Spain. Between 2002 and 2008, he served as Head of Laboratory at CISM and helped to establish the Biochemistry & Haematology, Immunology, Molecular Biology and Tuberculosis biosafety III laboratories. He also contributed to the establishment of a Quality Assurance System and certification of CISM’s laboratories for ISO 9001:2008.

Dr. Mandomando has worked at CISM for 19 years now, and his primary area of activities included leading the Epidemiological Studies on Measles, Salmonella, and Shigella (2001 – 2004) in the rural area of Manhiça, Mozambique. Dr. Mandomando has led a variety of applied research on infectious diseases with a focus on diarrheal disease burden and risk factor studies including the Global Enteric Multicenter Study (GEMS) between 2007 and 2012, rotavirus vaccine impact evaluation (since 2015 to date) in Mozambique.

He has been extensively working on molecular characterization of enteric pathogens; and between 2010 and 2012, he devoted his research on bacterial pathogenesis by studying the structure-function of aggregative adherence fimbriae type II (AAF/II) of enteroaggregative Escherichia coli by cloning and performing site-directed mutagenesis of aafA gene and recombining the mutants in native background and score the clones for different phenotypes, at Center for Vaccine Development (CVD) University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD & University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA, USA, under same mentorship.

Since 2013, Dr. Mandomando has been contributing in the validation of Minimally Invasive Autopsy (MIA) and currently oversees the CHAMPS site in Manhiça, Mozambique and MITS component for Countrywide Mortality Surveillance for Action (COMSA) in Quelimane, Mozambique. From 2013 to 2016, he worked as Deputy Director for Science at CISM and helped to establish the Scientific Directorate at CISM.

As a pediatrician, with a special interest in infectious disease epidemiology and public health, Professor Bassat has attempted to combine his clinical work with biomedical research in those diseases that most affect the poor and vulnerable. Dr. Bassat’s research has always relied on the premise that there is no greater public health intervention than that which can reduce child mortality, particularly in poor contexts. He has worked in low and middle-income countries to understand and prevent malaria, and other infectious diseases that most impact child survival. His work on P. falciparum malaria has contributed to better characterization of the clinical disease, and assessing treatment and prevention strategies, including vaccines and new antimalarial drugs. His work on yaws disease has substantially contributed to the identification of new therapeutic and preventive strategies for this neglected infection.

He has also worked in Mozambique, Morocco and Bhutan on the epidemiology, etiology and clinical characteristics of pneumonia, diarrhea and neonatal sepsis, all major causes of premature and often easily preventable mortality. Recognizing that in the poorest areas of the world diagnostic capacities are scarce, he has studied host biomarkers as a tool to reliably differentiate viral from bacterial conditions, and thus better target antibiotic treatment.

In recent years, his research has focused on improving upon existing data on the causes of death in low-income countries, a fundamental barrier for better healthcare and policy. A significant contribution has been the validation of a radically innovative minimally invasive autopsy (MIA) sampling protocol, now well accepted as the proxy gold standard for the cause of death investigation, and routinely utilized across CHAMPS sites.

Professor Bassat completed his undergraduate at the University of Barcelona, where he also qualified as a pediatrician in 2004. He received an MSc in Tropical medicine at the University of Barcelona (2004), a second MSc in Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (2008), and obtained his Ph.D. in 2009 at the University of Barcelona. He has published over 230 articles in peer-reviewed international journals, and more than 15 book chapters.