Dear colleagues,
Tomorrow 24th December, marks the start of our official Government X mas holidays and for many the start of New Year festivities. This is the time of year that we take time off work to be with family, take stock of the passing year, celebrate achievements, and make plans for the coming year.
As we come to the end of the year, I wish to congratulate all staff, partners, collaborators, and all stakeholders for completing 2024. I know that as I write this message, a few days are still left but I hope the good Lord will push us through to the end!
I take this opportunity to thank you all in your different capacities for the contributions made to maintain excellence in many different areas. I thank partners on campus for the continued support and collaboration in areas of research, training, and infrastructure development. Special thanks to all staff who have reached retirement and others who have left the institute, we thank them for the contributions they have made and wish them the best in their new lives and endeavours. I do welcome Prof Moffat Nyirenda who took over from me early this year as Director of the MRC/UVRI & LSHTM Uganda Research Unit. I also welcome Dr Mary Boyd, Adetinuke the new CDC country Director and Ms Aisha Kitenda, the new undersecretary, to a new position at UVRI.
With our partners, we have achieved a lot in research, with many high-impact publications contributing to new knowledge and policy and conducting important studies that are contributing to the control of many viral infections. We continue to be the main institution providing testing to support outbreaks, as we saw this year when we detected Mpox in Uganda for the first time.
For those who have had time to move around, you can see new infrastructure completed, such as the stores and immunology/virology laboratories, and those nearing completion, like the clinic, new polio molecular laboratories, and the archives/museum building.
We are very pleased that UVRI has been designated by the East African Community as the EAC Center of Excellence for Virology, and in the new year we will have an official launching ceremony, thanks to the funding from the German government through the KfW Bank to kick start the initial activities. We thank all those supporting our young scientists to train at different levels, contributing to Uganda’s human capital development in science. This year, the new weekly Friday joint science series has added to the flavour of science outputs.
I thank our scientists who have been able to win research grants from different funders, very well knowing how competitive research funding can be. It is through such efforts that we can supplement the government funding and enable our institute to deliver on its mission and provide employment opportunities. We have hosted many important visitors from different parts of the globe. I’m also pleased that after a long time we were able to acquire our land title in our UVRI names, keeping possession of approximately 70 acres of land.
Please accept our apologies for the inability to host the annual end-of-year party.
Let me end by wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year 2025
Prof Pontiano Kaleebu
Director, UVRI