Florent Mbo Kuikumbi

Dr Florent Mbo Kuikumbi joined DNDi in 2015 and is Access Leader and HAT Platform Coordinator in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Dr Mbo Kuikumbi has over 20 years of field experience as a General Practitioner, Health District Hospital Medical Director, Head of Health District, and Provincial Coordinator of the National Sleeping Sickness Control Programme of the Democratic Republic of Congo. He also worked as an investigator on sleeping sickness clinical trials.

As Access Leader and HAT Platform Coordinator, Dr Mbo Kuikumbi advocates for the use of new sleeping sickness treatments in endemic countries by obtaining the authorization of use via Ministries of Health and conducting training on new treatments use and pharmacovigilance in collaboration with the World Health Organization and endemic country stakeholders. The HAT Platform is a capacity building platform for clinical and operational research bringing together national sleeping sickness control programmes from the most affected countries and research institutions. In addition, the HAT Platform carries out activities to improve the research landscape, reinforce research capacities, support ethics committees, develop operational research, and share information between members through international scientific meetings and newsletters.

Dr Mbo Kuikumbi is a medical doctor graduating from the University of Kinshasa in 1998. He obtained an MSc in tropical diseases control from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium in 2007 and two post-graduate university certificates: one in health system research initiation from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 2012, and one in health policy from the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp in 2014.