Dr Salome Charalambous
Investigator
Salome is the Director of Research at The Aurum Institute. She has an impressive record of operational research and clinical trials in the field of HIV and TB in South Africa for over 15 years. From 2004 – 2008, she was the Principal Recipient of a large PEPFAR grant which provided antiretroviral treatment in communities for over 15,000 individuals. She is currently the Principal Investigator (PI) of a number of cluster randomized trials evaluating TB/HIV implementation strategies. In addition, Dr Charalambous has led clinical trials on new TB drugs such as the Rifaquin and Remox trials, and the large HIV microbicide trial (FACTS001) at the Aurum Rustenburg site. On the policy front, Dr Charalambous was instrumental in the production of the 2013 South African TB and HIV guidelines for Correctional Services and currently serves on the Department of Correctional Services Technical Task Team and the South African National TB Think Tank as the co-chair of one of the working groups.
For the collaboration, Dr Charalambous is planning a Treatment as Prevention intervention in prisons in South Africa and a combination HIV prevention intervention in prisons in Zimbabwe. New TB vaccines, drugs and regimens, host directed therapy and diagnostics will be required to reach the pre elimination and elimination phases. Dr Charalambous will lead the evaluation of moxifloxacin based regimens in TB/HIV co infected patients.