University of Botswana

Fellowship Site Directors: Bontle Mbongwe, PhD

Site Contact: Bontle Mbongwe, PhD (mbongwe@ub.ac.bw) & Wilfred Njabulo Nunu, PhD (nunuwn@ub.ac.bw)

Link to research site’s website: https://www.ub.bw/  

Site Specialties:

Environmental health, occupational health
Epidemiology, public health research, and population level intervention research
Microbiology and virology
Emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (Covid-19)
HIV, TB, and related diseases
Site Description:

The University of Botswana ((UB) is a comprehensive university spanning all the major learning clusters: Business, Education, Engineering and Technology, Health Sciences, Humanities, Medicine, Science and Social Sciences. The University of Botswana has state of the art teaching and research facilities under the Faculties of Health Sciences (established in 2007) and Medicine (established in 2009). UB has access to two main referral hospitals being Princess Marina Hospital in the south and Nyangabwe Referral Hospital in the north. Both hospitals provide tertiary level clinical care and are designated as teaching and research sites for nursing, medical, sciences, pharmacy, and pathology programmes. Princess Marina Hospital is the oldest and largest referral hospital with about 530 beds and is within 5 km radius of the University of Botswana. The facility includes a dialysis unit, a blood bank, a physiotherapy, a radiotherapy unit and a pathology department among others.  Additionally, the Faculty of Medicine is housed at the Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital (SKMTH).  SKMTH is the first quaternary level Hospital in Botswana. Its mandate includes delivery of patient-centered care for specialized health care services at quaternary level; teaching and facilitating the development of health care professionals and investing in and creating a conducive environment for medical research.

The Faculty of Health Sciences has strong research facilities including a research laboratory established through a Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) grant.  The University of Botswana collaborates with Harvard School of Public Health; Perelman School of Medicine University of Pennsylvania; Botswana-Harvard Partnership; and the Botswana Ministry of Health since 2001. The partnership is focused on research, clinical care, and training.