Meet the Team | MSF SAMU

HIV/TB Advisors

Tom Ellman is director of the Southern Africa Medical Unit (SAMU). Since first working for MSF in Rwanda in 1995, he has over 20 years of experience in humanitarian medical work mostly with Medecins Sans Frontieres. His focus has been on HIV, TB, and malaria in Africa and South-East Asia, apart from a three-year ‘break’ working on Chagas disease – the ‘AIDS of the Americas’ – in Bolivia.

Tom received his medical training in Edinburgh, has a Diploma from the School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (Liverpool), and a Masters in Communicable Disease Epidemiology from the School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (London). He is a member of the Royal College of Physicians, UK and a beekeeper.

Dimitri Donchuk

HIV, TB & Viral Hepatitis Advisor

Dmytro Donchuk joined MSF for the first time more than 12 years ago when he was still doing his medical training in infectious diseases. As a clinician he was in charge of care for the patients with HIV, tuberculosis and viral hepatitis in his home town of Odessa in Ukraine. After several years break, during which he worked in a number of HIV/TB treatment programs in Russia, Dmytro returned to work in MSF field projects, to be confronted by the challenge of HIV/TB epidemics in Mozambique and Swaziland, and drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) and HIV in Kyrgyz prisons.

In 2011 Dmytro joined SAMU where he currently supports a number of OCB HIV, TB and hepatitis projects in Eastern Europe, Asia, and West and North Africa. He is the HIV/TB and hepatitis advisor and focal point on comprehensive medical care for PWUD (People Who Use Drugs). Dmytro coordinates the intersectional contact group on chronic viral hepatitis.

Rosie Burton

Advanced HIV Senior Clinical Advisor, Infectious Diseases Specialist

Rosie Burton is the Advanced HIV Senior Clinical Advisor for SAMU. An advocate for the health needs of marginalized communities from her early years, Rosie completed her medical training in the UK and then went on to specialize in obstetrics and gynaecology. After a short placement in South Africa during her specialist training Rosie returned to South Africa to take her studies further, specializing in internal medicine and then taking her education one step further into a specialist training in infectious diseases.

After several years working in this field for the ministry of health in South Africa she joined MSF in 2014, where she rapidly found her niche, travelling extensively throughout Africa providing technical support, training and mentoring in rural hospitals dealing primarily with sick patients with HIV and TB. Her extensive experience in these varied rural environments has positioned her ideally for substantial contributions to the development of two widely used practical handbooks for HIV and TB care in both hospital and primary care environments.

Esther Casas

HIV/TB Advisor

Esther Casas is the Senior HIV/TB Advisor and focal point for Zimbabwe, Guinea, Central African Republic and Nigeria, where she provides HIV/TB technical and strategic support, and also coordinates SAMU input.

She is also responsible for the following portfolios: Pediatrics and Adolescent HIV/TB, Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT), integration of HIV/TB care in countries with other operational priorities and HIV/TB care in emergencies and unstable settings.

Antonio Flores

HIV/TB Advisor

Antonio Flores is an infectious disease specialist with clinical and programmatic experience in HIV, TB, viral hepatitis and tropical diseases (mainly malaria and Kala-Azar). He joined SAMU in 2020 to support the implementation and integration of HIV and TB programs in humanitarian settings.

He has worked with MSF since 2016 and implemented and coordinated medical programs in a variety of contexts, such as epidemics, migrants/displaced populations and conflict, throughout Africa and in Brazil.

Hannah Spencer

HIV/TB Advisor

Hannah is an infectious diseases doctor from the UK. She joined MSF in 2012 and has worked in Sierra Leone, South Sudan and on TB/HIV/Hepatitis programmes in Uzbekistan and India. She become a TB/HIV/Hepatitis Advisor for the Manson Unit (MSF UK) in 2020 with a focus on drug-resistant TB, viral hepatitis and COVID-19. She has a Master in Public Health, Diploma in Tropical Medicine & Hygiene and is a Member of the Royal College of Physicians (UK). She joined SAMU in 2022. Outside of work, she can be found up a hill, running slowly or in the ocean.

Calorine Noël Mekiedje

HIV/TB Advisor

Calorine Noël Mekiedje is a Cameroonian medical doctor with a Master of Public Health in Hospital Management from the University of Roehampton (UK). After graduating in 2004 in Madagascar, she has worked in Yaoundé for 3 years, then joined MSF in 2007 in various countries and different contexts in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. During the first 10 years, she has worked as a clinician, Project Medical Referent and Field Medical Advisor in primary health care, HIV/TB and DRTB thematic projects. She later diversified her practical competences in war contexts with surgical projects, vaccination campaigns, SRH, secondary health care and emergencies as PMR, MAM and MedCo. She is perfectly bilingual in French and English, but also speaks good Portuguese from her missions in Mozambique. She joined SAMU in early 2022, holding the portfolio of Democratic Republic of Congo and Central Africa Republic as strategic focal point. Calorine enjoys meditation, reading, movies and sports (walking, swimming, dancing and yoga)

Technical Support Advisors

Patient and Community Support

Kleio Iakovidi

Patient & Community Support Flying Advisor

After her specialization in clinical psychology in France, Kleio Iakovidi joined MSF Greece for her first mission in a primary health care project for migrants and refugees. Over the last 10 years she has been traveling, volunteering and working in both East Africa and South East Asia, focusing mostly on psychosocial support for HIV and TB patients. She is most passionate about working with children and adolescents.

Kleio has also participated in emergency programs as a psychologist and project coordinator, related to an earthquake in Athens and a stampede in Phnom Penh. In addition to MSF, she has worked for local NGOs in countries where she lived in the past, as well as for the French Red Cross and for the IFRC reference center for psychosocial support in Copenhagen as technical advisor. Having just finished a one-year “working break” in Europe, she felt it was time to go back to the field to work on HIV and DR-TB issues.

Mariana Garcia

Patient and Community Support Advisor

Mariana Garcia is a Brazilian Clinical Psychologist with Humanitarian Aid background. She started working with MSF in 2009 in different contexts (Colombia, Gaza Strip, India, Zimbabwe, etc). She completed a Masters in International Cooperation and Development at University of Cantabria Spain in 2009. She joined SAMU in March 2016 as Patient Community Support Advisor providing technical and strategic support to HIV/TB programs on health promotion and mental health activities in different projects in the southern African region (Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, DRC and Guinea).

Laboratory

Zibusiso Ndlovu

Lab advisor

Mr. Ndlovu is a Medical Scientist and also holds an MSc in Epidemiology and Biostatistics among other qualifications in project management and M&E. He has previously worked as a medical laboratory scientist in public and private diagnostic laboratories, and has also practiced as an epidemiologist. In 2014, he joined MSF as the research coordinator for the Zimbabwe project. He joined SAMU in January 2016 and provides support to MSF programme laboratories in the region.

M&E and Research

Petros Isaakidis

Operational Research Coordinator

Petros is the Senior Operational Research (OR) Advisor of SAMU and leads the OR and M&E team. He coordinates OR activities across SAMU-supported HIV/TB/ HCV projects and countries and oversees the OR framework.

Petros provides technical support to the field to ensure up-to-date research agendas, adequate resources for the conduct of quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods research, from the concept paper and protocol all the way to dissemination of research findings , including MSF platforms (Scientific Days and OR Day), regional and global medical conferences and publications in peer-reviewed journals. He liaises with the MSF Ethics review Board (ERB), Luxembourg Operational Research Unit (LuxOR) and the rest of the Medical Department for OR related dossiers.

Sarah Jane Steele

Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor

Sarah Jane (SJ) Steele received a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Toronto, Canada. Her thesis explored the event- and individual- level characteristics associated with unprotected anal intercourse among gay and other men who have sex with men in Shanghai, China.

SJ joined MSF in 2015 as a Mission epidemiologist in South Africa where she became interested in monitoring and evaluation, and obsessed with denominators and the intellectual challenges of understanding data flow in routine settings. She joined SAMU in 2018, where her work has been primarily focused on HIV programs but she also has experience in monitoring sexual violence, TB and programs focused on providing services to key populations. In her spare time, you can find her in the ocean, in a tent, holding a set of knitting needles or experimenting in the kitchen or camp fire.

Gauthier Abdala

Flying M&E Advisor

Gauthier Abdala is an Information Management enthusiast with over 6 years experience analyzing end user needs and providing data management solutions. He holds a degree in Business Information Technology from Strathmore University in Kenya and a Masters in Business Administration from Marymount California University, USA. He joined MSF in 2017 as the eHealth Manager for the HIV Project in Democratic Republic of the Congo. He joined SAMU in 2021.

Key Populations

Lucy O'Connell

Key Populations Advisor

Lucy O’Connell is a sexual and reproductive health (SRH) nurse with a Women’s Health BSc from the University of London and a Masters in Public Health, Health Promotion stream, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She currently works as a Key Populations focal point with SAMU providing technical support to the field. She has over 20 years of experience working with communities and adapting models of care for hard to reach populations in HIV/SRH in the UK and abroad with MSF and other NGOs.

Originally from Argentina, Lucy is now based in Cape Town and has worked with sex workers and other vulnerable populations in a variety of contexts including the UK, Southern Africa, South East Asia and South America.

She has a particular interest in promoting comprehensive accessible services for key populations, adolescents and young people, through engagement and empowerment of peers within health care delivery. She is a mother of two and a wife of one, is a passionate cook and dancer, and loves drinking Argentinean mate.

Strategic Resources

Robyn Mosdell

Head of Strategic Resources

Robyn is the Head of Strategic Resources in SAMU. Her background is in psychology, development and gender studies. She has spent 30 years in the development and humanitarian sectors in both South African and international organizations. She began her career developing youth centres in the Eastern Cape. She spent a number of years providing counselling over a number of themes including coping with terminal illness, dealing with loss, career planning, trauma, relationship and NGO management.

As her career progressed, she became involved in NGO governance and has been in management roles in a number of large NGOs such as Family and Marriage Society of South Africa; The Cancer Association; Planned Parenthood Association; Sonke Gender Justice Network; Inyathelo, The South African Institute for Advancement and now Doctors without Borders.

She is also an Integral Coach. She completed her Coaching for Development training through The Centre for Coaching, situated at the UCT Graduate School of Business (GSB) in 2019 and her Professional Coaching Course through the same school in 2020/21.

Learning and Development Unit

Ian Proudfoot

Learning Unit Coordinator

Ian Proudfoot is the clinical training coordinator for SAMU. After graduating as a doctor from the University of Cape Town in 1982, he spent over 20 years in general practice in Cape Town, during which time he specialised in family medicine. In 2007 the needs of the government sector started to beckon and within a few years he made a career shift into HIV medicine, moving to Mpumalanga in 2009 to work in an HIV/TB clinic.

Two years later, after gaining valuable HIV consulting experience and completing the HIV management diploma, he moved back to Cape Town, joining MSF in their Khayelitsha project. There his passion for clinical education started to find expression, resulting in a move to SAMU to take over the running of the training unit. With increasing demand for training SAMU’s learning unit expanded considerably over the next few years, with him taking on a new head of training and allowing him to move into a more focused role of developing HIV clinical resources and elearning materials and coordinating clinical HIV trainings both in Cape Town and in the field. In early 2020, whilst nearing the end of a masters course in health professions education at a university in Cape Town, he took over as head of the learning unit, taking on the coordination of all SAMU’s training offers and leading the strategic and pedagogical visions of the learning unit.

Alexandra Meyer

Knowledge and Administration Officer

Alexandra is the Knowledge and Administration officer in the SAMU Learning Unit. Alexandra coordinates and manages SAMU's knowledge management activities; as well as organises and oversees the smooth running of SAMU online trainings and trainings in Cape Town.

Alexandra hold a BA Fine Arts degree from Stellenbosch University and a Masters in Cultural Studies from Université Jean Moulin, Lyon.

Mohamed Benhabiles

Nursing & Nutrition Pedagogical Advisor

After graduating in 2009 from Algiers nursing college, Mohamed worked as an emergency nurse for 6 years before joining MSF in 2015. He has worked in many different contexts with MSF, particularly in emergency settings in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. In the past 2 and half years, Mohamed has worked in learning and development, providing and designing trainings.

Freddy Mangana

Senior Mentoring and Learning Advisor

Freddy is a medical doctor experienced in advanced HIV and tuberculosis; and an advanced HIV trainer. He has been working for several years in the management and care of people living with HIV as a clinical physician, doctors' supervisor, clinical mentor and trainer of doctors and nurses in hospitals supported by MSF in the field of HIV and tuberculosis.

Consultants affiliated to SAMU

EpiCentre

Claire Bossard

Epidemiologist