Trainees on the Impact Program on Rheumatic Heart Disease have undergone training in clinical trial designs, randomization and analysis by expert biostatisticians from Makerere University’s College of Health Sciences. The training, held between 5-10 February 2024, was conducted by Prof. Noah Kiwanuka and Fredrick Makumbi and Drs Ronald Ssenyonga and Ssuna Bashir.
Prof. Noah Kiwanuka explained clinical trials as experimental research studies among human beings or animals whose goal is to determine the effect of an intervention. The intervention could be a drug/vaccine; medical procedure or device and a socio-behavioral, economic or education intervention.
“For a clinical trial to happen, there must be an intervention, outcomes to be measured and participants. These participants may need to be kept blind of which participants are randomized to which group and what they are receiving,” Prof. Kiwanuka taught.
Additionally, he taught on the common methods of analysis namely: intention-to-treat (ITT); per protocol and as treated; controlled human infection models and On the other hand, Prof. Makumbi explored levels of randomization, their application, methods, key terms and concealments. Drs. Ssuna and Ssenyonga tackled analysis of clinical trials and strategies for minimizing sample sizes respectively.
