On 3rd March 2025 the Zambian research team, in collaboration with the global maternal health team at KCL, held the PAPAGAIO launch and PINEAPPLE dissemination day. This was a fantastic celebration of all the work that has been completed and is to come, with over 100 attendees from across Zambia.
The event was held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Lusaka, with the Permanent Secretary for Health and Technology attending to offer his support and congratulations to the teams on engaging with policy makers to rapidly implement novel innovations. Researchers were encouraged to submit policy briefs on emerging new evidence generated in future.
The day was overseen by Professor Vwalika, Professor of Obstetrics and Principal Investigator of the PINEAPPLE and PAPAGAIO studies in Zambia, and Professor Andrew Shennan, Professor of Obstetrics at KCL, and Principal Investigator of the NIHR PAPAGAIO programme of research.
There were many wonderful presentations, including from the Zambian research assistants, Dr Rachael, Dr Meek and Dr Mutinta, who have had their research accepted for presentation at the FIGO World Congress, and Dr Chileshe Mabula-Bwalya, PhD candidate at KCL and a finalist in the PhD 3-minute thesis competition! We also had the opportunity to be inspired by the dedicated and committed team of research midwives in Zambia who shared their experiences of working in research. This was followed by a theory of change workshop discussing implementing the intervention in the PAPAGAIO-diagnosis randomised controlled trial.
On day two there were community engagement meetings, a well-attended doctor training session including a summary of PlGF testing, a discussion of clinical scenarios and clinical management algorithms, and protocol training for the research team.