CARTA @ 10 Scientific Conference Proceedings:3-4 December, 2020

In 2020, the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa celebrated its ten years recruiting fellows. As part of the CARTA@10 celebrations, the CARTA Secretariat organized a scientific conference, in an online video conferencing format, on December 3-4, 2020. The conference brought together CARTA fellows and graduates to present and discuss their research in health systems and non-communicable diseases, ageing, sexual and reproductive health rights, infectious diseases, and immunization. This book of abstracts and the videos that support it were edited and put together by Rita Karoki, Gloria Chemutai and Marta Vicente-Crespo in their roles as members of the CARTA Secretariat, which is hosted at the African Population and Health Research Center in Nairobi, Kenya. Marta Vicente-Crespo is also an honorary senior lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. CARTA was formed in 2008 to support the development of a vibrant African academy able to lead world-class multidisciplinary research that impacts positively on public and population health. The Consortium goals are to create networks of locally-trained internationally recognized scholars; enhance the capacity of African universities to lead globally competitive research and training programs; and build vibrant, viable, sustainable multidisciplinary research hubs at Africa-based universities. CARTA offers a well thought out approach to rebuild and to strengthen the capacity of African universities to produce world-class researchers, research leaders, and scholars. CARTA is a collaboration jointly led by the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), Kenya, and the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), South Africa. CARTA's Mission is to build high-level capacity for population and public health-related research in Africa. The CARTA partner institutions are: a. African Universities - Makerere University (Uganda); Obafemi Awolowo University (Nigeria); University of Ibadan (Nigeria); University of Rwanda (Rwanda); University of Malawi (Malawi); Moi University (Kenya); University of Nairobi (Kenya); and University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). b. African Research Institutes - African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC; Kenya); KEMRI/Wellcome Trust Research Program (Kenya); Ifakara Health Institute (IHI; Tanzania) and Agincourt Population and Health Unit (South Africa). c. Non-African Institutions - Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research (CCGHR) (Canada), Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) (Switzerland), University of Gothenburg (Sweden), Umeå University (Sweden), University of Warwick (UK), Brown University (USA), University of Bergen (Norway), and ESE:O and University of Chile (Chile) Carta Website: cartafrica.org CARTA is funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York (Grant No. G-16-54067 & G-19-57145), Sida (Grant No. 54100113), Uppsala Monitoring Centre and the DELTAS Africa Initiative (Grant No: 107768/Z/15/Z). The DELTAS Africa Initiative is an independent funding scheme of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS)’s Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA) and supported by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development Planning and Coordinating Agency (NEPAD Agency) with funding from the Wellcome Trust (UK) and the UK government.