About AHRI
The Africa Health Research Institute’s vision is
optimal health and well-being of under-resourced populations.
Africa Health Research Institute’s vision is optimal health and well-being of under-resourced populations.
Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) is an independent, transdisciplinary scientific research institute based across two campuses in the province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) in South Africa.
AHRI’s research combines population, basic and translational, social, and clinical sciences to understand and intervene in the health and well-being of South African communities.
AHRI works in partnership with local communities and South African academic, governmental, and other policy stakeholders and collaborates with over 60 institutions globally. AHRI prioritises the training of the next generation of African scientists.
The work lives of AHRI’s ~700 scientists, students and staff members are driven by our values: ubuntu, transformation, leadership, innovation, excellence and collaboration.
Research facilities
AHRI is based across two campuses in KwaZulu-Natal.
Somkhele
AHRI-Somkhele is in an under-resourced rural area of northern KZN. At its core is a health and demographic surveillance site (HDSS), which aims to describe the demographic, social, and health impact of the HIV epidemic in a population going through a health transition, and to monitor the impact of intervention strategies on the epidemic. The HDSS incorporates an area of 845 km² and has followed >100,000 participants longitudinally for ~20 years. AHRI’s extensive longitudinal database integrates data collected from our population, clinical and laboratory research.
Read more about our data repository.
Durban
AHRI-Durban is based at UKZN’s Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine. It incorporates state-of-the-art facilities including over 600m2 of biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) laboratory space and a South African National Accreditation System/ISO 15189 accredited clinical laboratory. AHRI is fully equipped for diagnostic and exploratory testing services including immunology, proteomics, microbiology and virology, and animal research. AHRI additionally has a range of bespoke clinical cohorts and sampling populations within local clinics and hospitals to facilitate our laboratory research.