Sabine Hermans
As an infectious diseases physician and epidemiologist with more than 10 years of experience living and working in various sub-Saharan African countries, Sabine Hermans has a varied, complementary and unique skill-set. Her research interests include HIV and tuberculosis (co-)infection, in particular recurrent tuberculosis, and optimal strategies of HIV and TB health care delivery in sub-Saharan Africa.
Within the realm of HIV and TB, she specialize in the analysis of large-scale routinely collected data using up-to-date techniques, and prospective studies of the impact of health care interventions. Her expertise enables me to collaborate effectively with basic scientists as well as public health experts, mathematical modellers, clinicians and policy makers.
Her work analyzing a decade of routinely collected TB data in Cape Town, South Africa, and Kampala, Uganda has led to her current research focus on recurrent TB. Sabine’s aim is to determine the mechanisms underlying the increased risk of recurrent TB to identify better approaches for TB control, both in the area of TB vaccines and adapted screening or treatment approaches.
Other current work includes a prospective study of the most effective TB screening strategy in the context of Universal HIV Test and Treat (UTT) in rural Tanzania, operational research on the effectiveness of UTT in that setting, and an evaluation of a new stool-based PCR for diagnosis of TB in children and people living with HIV in Uganda, Mozambique and Eswatini (Stool4TB study).
Recently, she was awarded three grants for projects which are about to start: a prospective cohort study to implement and evaluate novel drug regimens for multi- and extensive drug resistant TB in South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Tanzania (T2RiAD study), and two studies into the transmission and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa.
Sabine is passionate about capacity development and is involved in teaching and mentorship of students at various levels including bachelor and master theses (BSc Medicine and MSc Health Sciences). She is the co-promotor of four PhD students undertaking research into HIV and TB epidemiology in Tanzania (2) and South Africa (2).