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Data for Health in Africa Meeting
&
5th DS-I Africa Consortium Meeting
23 - 29 August 2025
CEDI Centre, University of Ghana, Accra


  • Dr Simon Arunga - Participant

    MUDSReH: MUST Data Science Research Hub (Co-PI)

    Dr. Simon Arunga, a senior lecturer and ophthalmologist at Mbarara University of Science and Technology, and honorary assistant professor at LSHTM, UK, assumes the role of overall lead for the Multimodal Database of Retina Images for Africa (MoDRIA) at Ugandan sites. Over the past three years as co-investigator, Dr. Arunga has not only mentored colleagues into leadership roles but also driven MoDRIA to surpass its ambitious 5-year target of collecting 50,000 retina images in just three years. Collaborating internationally with institutions like MIT and Harvard, MoDRIA is poised to launch Africa's first meticulously curated retina database on PhysioNet. Under Dr. Arunga's guidance, MoDRIA has already yielded scholarly outputs, including a forthcoming manuscript on its diabetic retinopathy dataset, with another publication accepted. His leadership extends beyond research, as evidenced by his success in securing additional funding as principal investigator for NIH-funded projects like the Jeremiah's Light Retinal Study and CHENNAI, focusing respectively on CMV's impact on vision in advanced HIV patients and AI-driven corneal injury mitigation.