Empilweni Services Research Unit

Unit Director: Professor Ashraf Coovadia

The Empilweni Services and Research Unit (ESRU)
based within the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health at the RMMCH is one of the newest officially recognized members of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Wits. The unit obtained official  recognition in late 2014. The unit is headed by its Director Professor Ashraf Coovadia and has a team of senior clinical researchers including Professor Gayle Sherman, Dr Karl Technau, Dr Renate Strehlau, Dr Gary Reubenson, Dr Gill Sorour and Prof. Joanne Potterton.

Historically, this unit grew out of a need to provide Antiretroviral access to HIV-infected children receiving care within the Department of  Paediatrics at Wits. Professor Ashraf Coovadia along with Professor Tammy Meyers (Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital CHBAH) and Dr Dalo Ndiweni (Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital - CMJAH) initially created the Wits Paeds Group which was a network of Paediatric HIV clinics that provided state-of-the art services to infants and children who were HIV-exposed or HIV-infected. This group later called the Wits Paediatric HIV Clinics, continued to grow in staffing as well as began research projects  at the Harriet Shezi Children’s HIV clinic at CHBAH. In 2000 clinical research began within the Paediatric HIV services at RMMCH which was later called the Empilweni Clinic. Empilweni was chosen as its name as it is translated from isiZulu as ‘a place of life’.

In 2010, the Empilweni Services and Research Unit was established as an entity within the Wits Health Consortium as the Harriet Shezi Children’s research unit had become part of the newly established Wits HIV Research Institute (WRHI). ESRU, which received funding from WRHI as a sub-recipient of the Presidential Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), continued to advance its services for HIV-infected children as well as HIV-infected mothers and their HIV-exposed infants as well as its research agenda.

Today ESRU boasts a staff compliment of   more than 40 individuals involved in either research or service provision at the RMMCH. Its work spans advocacy, training, clinical research and, importantly, overseeing and managing the two important HIV programmes of the National Department of Health being the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) and the Paediatric HIV treatment programme. There are several NIH funded clinical research projects as well as pharma sponsored trails. ESRU remains one of few Paediatric research sites across the province and indeed the country.
The official recognition of the unit by the Faculty of Health Sciences in 2014 and the construction of the new three story building at RMMCH were major highlights during the review period.