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Dr Levi Osuagwu takes on new position at Bathurst Rural Clinical School

LeviDr Levi Osuagwu has taken up a new position as a Senior Lecturer in Rural Health at the Bathurst Rural Clinical School. He will continue to work with Distinguished Professor David Simmons and DOMTRU in various projects including MDP students, Transition clinic Audits (Campbelltown and St Vincent’s hospital), Diabetes foot audit, two longitudinal studies in Auckland (DCSS) and Victoria (Crossroads studies).

I am so proud to have published my first article with Bathurst Rural Clinical School as my affiliation. One of many projects to come.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of the projections led us to believe that not many of us 'Africans' will be alive today. It was so bad that those of us in Diaspora feared that we would lose our loved ones back home. We made calls to warn friends and families and conducted several community meetings online to educate our people. Understandably, the poor healthcare across African countries, lack of infrastructure, poverty, low level of awareness and the corrupt system would make us believe that those projections were not farfetched.

Fast forward, Africa was spared (at least to date), and the explanations are incomprehensible. During the pandemic, many research groups emanated including the African Translational Research Group (AfTreG) initiated by Western Sydney University Researchers (Dr Osuagwu Uchechukwu Levi and A/Prof Kingsley Agho). Researchers from 11 countries in and outside of Africa, most of whom never knew each other previously, met regularly online to conduct several research studies.

Although we have published many articles (>10 as a team), including some information pieces with the Conversation (a new article is in production which tells the story of our group formation/challenges and how we overcame), this newly published manuscript, holds a special place in my heart. It was the first project we all worked together on, and through this we learnt how to adapt to the different writing styles of a very diverse interdisciplinary team. It is also first article with my new affiliation, marking the beginning of more things to come.

Look forward to more from the Bathurst Rural Clinical School!

Public awareness and perception towards COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan African countries during the lockdown (opens in a new window)