Milton Park Clinical Research Site

Milton Park CRS is situated at No. 31 Lawson Avenue, Milton Park. The CRS draws participants from across urban Harare’s 8 administrative districts, as well as from the surrounding urban and peri-urban areas.  The City of Harare Health Department has a network of 12 primary care clinics from which the Milton Park CRS recruits research participants. Early NIH funding (2003) created the ACTG International Clinical Trials Unit at this site. Initially hosted within the UZ Department of Medicine, Milton Park CRS now occupies and conducts studies in two clinic locations at the University of Zimbabwe Clinical Research Center (UZ-CRC) and the Parirenyatwa Kaposi Sarcoma Outpatient Clinic.

The CRS has well developed expertise and infrastructure to conduct high quality research in the following priority areas:

  • Adult HIV therapeutic strategies, including HIV cure, non-infections co-morbidities, and the infectious co-morbidities of hepatitis and tuberculosis
  • Integrated HIV prevention strategies

  • Adult HIV therapeutic strategies, including HIV cure, non-infections co-morbidities, and the infectious co-morbidities of hepatitis and tuberculosis
  • Integrated HIV prevention strategies

Specialized Research Capacity

Parirenyatwa Kaposi Sarcoma Outpatient Clinic: Located in the main Parirenyatwa Hospital outpatient department, the Kaposi Sarcoma Outpatient Clinic has been operational since 1992 and attends to 100 patients weekly.  ACTG protocols, A5263 and A5264 were conducted from this clinic, which will conduct future studies on other HIV-related malignancies. There are four physician consultation rooms, a patient waiting area, and UZ-CTRC’s research-dedicated Aseptic Room for chemotherapy preparation, which contains a Biosafety Cabinet, Class II.

The CRS is also equipped with a Bone Mass Density (BMD) Scanner operated by two trained radiographers, a colposcopy machine, and cryo-gun machine.

On-Site Testing and Specimen Preparation

The CRS is also supported by a DAIDS-certified satellite laboratory within the CRS. The laboratory conduct on-site testing for rapid HIV tests, wet mount, urine pregnancy tests, and dipstick urinalysis, and ensure that samples are collected and their integrity maintained until they reach the Central Laboratory, 2kms away at UZCHS, where they are processed and stored.  For more information on our centralized testing capacity, please see our Central Laboratory page.

Pharmacy Services

The CRS has excellent support from its DAIDS certified pharmacy located at no. 31 Lawson, as well as from UZ-CTRC’s Central Pharmacy; at the latter, study product for all pharmacies is stored. The CRS pharmacies ensure uninterrupted service for dispensing, adherence counseling, and optimum storage of study product and HIV primary care drugs, as dictated by the various DAIDS Network protocols. The Chemotherapy Aseptic Room is located within the main pharmacy of the main Parirenyatwa Hospital, which is 200 meters from the UZ-CRC clinic pharmacy. This facility supports current and future protocols that require chemotherapy drug preparations.  For more information on our centralized pharmacy please see our Central Pharmacy page.

Contact

For inquiries related to Milton Park CRS and the research it conducts, please contact Site Leader, Wadzanai Samaneka

Email: wsamaneka@uz-ctrc.org