Baylor Children's Clinical Centre of Excellence, Botswana

Fellowship Site Directors:  Dr. Mogomotsi Matshaba  

Site Contacts: 

Ms Grace Karugaba   
Bridgette Naik, bcnaik@bcm.edu   
Maral Gurbanova, maral.gurbanova@bcm.edu 

Websites:   

https://www.texaschildrensglobalhealth.org/botswana  
https://www.botswanabaylor.org/  
  

Site Specialties:  

• HIV 
• TB
• Cancer 
• Genomics  

Site Description:  

Botswana-Baylor Children’s Clinical Centre of Excellence Trust (Botswana-Baylor Trust) is a national general care and treatment facility launched in 2003 that provides services in Gaborone, Botswana. We serve children, adolescents, and young adults and their families from around the country. Our services include treatment for HIV and associated infections such as TB and now extend to oncology care and treatment for patients nationally. Also, we act as a major research hub contributing valuable information to the international HIV and oncology communities.  On the genomics and bioinformatics front, we lead a consortium of collaborator from BIPAI and Baylor College of Medicine. This is the NIH funded Collaborative African Genomics Network (CAfGEN) grant, a long-term capacity enhancement project with aim to graduate a total of 11 PhD and 4 MSc graduates in Bioinformatics and Genetics and build the research infrastructure in Botswana, Eswatini and Uganda while at the same time working to elucidate the role of genetics and genomics on the progression of TB and HIV in African children.

The Center of Excellence, the first of its kind on the African continent, is located on the campus of the Princess Marina Hospital, the largest tertiary care referral hospital in Botswana. Botswana-Baylor Trust provides free-of- charge, state-of-the-art pediatric HIV, oncology, and blood disorder care, treatment, and support to children, adolescents, and their families at the main clinic in Gaborone and through decentralized outreach services across the country. Botswana-Baylor Trust is a leader in the field of pediatric HIV and cancer care in Botswana, the Southern Africa region, and beyond.