The following is an update from the CHAMPS Ethiopia newsletter. Read more to learn about their recent progress and future programmatic steps.  Subscribe to the newsletter here.

A lot has happened in Harar in the last couple of months, for CHAMPS-Ethiopia as well as national events. On September 11th we celebrated Enkutatash – Ethiopian New Year. This was followed by Meskel, finding of the true cross, a major Ethiopian Orthodox festival of light (onlookers pictured above, Harar town). At the same time, our social science team has had two training weeks and started formative research, whilst progress on the microbiology and pathology laboratories continues!
The social science team is now busy with focus groups and interviews across all sectors of the community and all geographies, from Hiwot Fana Specialized University Hospital to the furthest ends of Kersa DSS.

Our social science team has done data collection and data analysis training. Thanks to Liz O’Mara, Ahoua Kone, Fiona Wiltshier and Khatia Munguambe, pictured above training our team.

What is coming up?

• We are recruiting Laboratory Technicians, Medical Physicians and a Project Assistant to work with us.
• We will be having our first Scientific Advisory Committee Meeting in November in Addis Ababa.
• We are looking forward to meeting CHAMPS site members from across the network in Maputo, Mozambique at the CHAMPS Annual Meeting.
• Prof Anthony Scott and Shirine Voller will be spending a week with the HU-LSHTM team.
• We look forward to the return of Prof John Blevins from the CHAMPS-PO to develop community engagement planning for CHAMPS.