Tafara Zanamwe Email & Phone Number

Namibia

Namibia

• Advised the disease surveillance pillar of Namibia’s Covid-19 response on case investigation, contact tracing, data management, analysis and reporting• Drafted research proposals, collecting, analyzing COVID-19 data, and writing reports to facilitate the improvement Namibia’s ongoing Covid-19 response • Developed concept notes and presentations for additional funding from partners such as WHO and Africa CDC• Implemented the COVID-19 resurgence plan in Namibia, overseeing COVID-19 control activities and COVID-19 control based on levels of COVID-19 resurgence thresholds• Co-authored a report on analysis of COVID-19 breakthrough infections (submitted for publication)• Collaborated with the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Education & Culture, Ministry of Home Affairs, and Ministry of Security Services in the control of COVID-19• Surveyed vaccine coverage for measles Rubella and COVID-19 vaccines (Rapid convenience monitoring).• Supervised 25 volunteers in the of surveillance pilllars: Data management, data verification sub-pillar, SitRep and minister's daily update sub-pillars

• Managed and coordinated lab activities and staff performance for a comprehensive TB care project and a PRACTECAL Randomized Clinical Trial.• Directed and stimulated team members in strategic planning and updating the activities to be achieved within the laboratory including relevant budgets.• Enforced compliance with all hygiene and safety protocols both for individual and collective protection, ensuring 100% bio-hazards training for personnel.• Planned and presided over, in liaison with HR, the recruitment, training, performance evaluation, and development of the laboratory staff. • Designed and implemented a training plan for all the laboratory staff, in close collaboration with MoH laboratory manager• Devised a sustainability plan to enable handover of TB laboratory, including sustained and discontinued activities• Monitored and evaluated the program and generated ideas and advice for the program’s improvement.

Kyrgyzstan

• Guided a team of 4 personnel in the development, objective setting, implementation, and appraisal of an innovative pilot project on decentralization of sputum collection.• Effected quality improvement in a large private laboratory to align practices with GCLP and SOPs as required by principal investigators from MSF ENDTB clinical trial.• Prepared lab parts of monthly sitrep, semi-annual and annual activity reports.• Piloted a working group on the development and implementation of a decentralized sputum collection system involving 102 primary health care facilities in the Kara Suu region of Osh in 2018.• Negotiated a memorandum of agreement that re-established close cooperation between MSF and the Osh Inter-Regional Reference Lab for tuberculosis in 2017.

Russian Federation

• Proposed and executed a plan to add new drug (Moxifloxacin), to the drug sensitivity testing panel of Grozny lab.• Facilitated drawing of a floor plan for the improved BSL3 lab for Grozny.• Maintained equipment that included Bactec MGIT 960, Biosafety cabinets, GeneXpert instruments and clinical chemistry analyzers.• Integrated epidemic curves and root cause analysis to identify and eliminate the spike in culture contamination rates in the Grozny Republican TB lab.

Swaziland

• Led the implementation of thin layer agar in a sub-regional reference Tuberculosis laboratory.• Implemented several quality improvement projects within the framework of SLMTA among them implementation of equipment SOPs and maintenance charts• Trained nurses and lay lab workers from 22 clinics and 3 health centres on the procedures for administering informed consent for operational research study on the thin layer agar• Performed tests for the routine diagnosis and monitoring of patients infected with Tuberculosis and HIV, including; haematology, CD4, biochemistry and HIV RDT. • Introduced a simple but innovative system to collate results from the three separate departments of CD4, haematology and biochemistry so that the patient receives all of them together that cut proportion of lost result by more than 80% • Provided technical support to the National Reference Lab for TB with the aim of increasing the number and quantity of culture and DST performed. There was a dramatic increase in the numbers of cultures from less than a thousand to over six thousand per year in 2009. • Developed a database in access that enabled the results of cultures to be printed automatically thus reducing the backlog of pending results and the turnaround time.• Introduced a new innovative way of making culture smears adhere to the slide using formol milk with result of more adherent smears with a deeper background that were safer to read.• Advocated for and implemented rapid method of identifying strains belonging to the complex MTB (MPT64), to replace the Gene probe.

Harare

• Tested for diagnosis and monitored patients infected with HIV and TB that included CD4, hematology, serology, biochemistry, and ZN microscopy.• Trained and equipped 40 lab assistants with skills in TB sputum smear microscopy, malaria, and HIV diagnosis.• Received International Union training on tuberculosis culture On Ogawa and LJ drug sensitivity testing.• Performed routine serological testing including HIV RDT, ELISA, Hepatitis latex and ELISA.

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd, International Public Health/International Health

Master Of Business Administration - Mba, Project Management

Master Of Arts - Ma, Public Health, 71

Post Graduate Diploma, Public Health, 72

Bachelor'S Degree, Clinical Laboratory Science/Medical Technology/Technologist, 3

Bachelor Of Arts - Ba, Development Studies