Prof Tobias Rinke de Wit (left) arrived in Cape Town in December 2011 from the Netherlands. He is employed by PharmAccess International (PAI) Amsterdam with an assignment to COHSASA as the Director of Research and Business Development of SafeCare. He will also be overseeing SafeCare projects and assisting with the integration of activities of COHSASA and SafeCare in concert with COHSASA staff.Tobias (50) is a PhD molecular immunologist who qualified from the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. After graduation, he worked for 10 years in Ethiopia in various public and private healthcare research settings, including the Armauer Hansen Research Institute (AHRI) and the Ethiopian Health and Nutrition Research Institute (EHNRI) in Addis Ababa. He established the first molecular immunological laboratory in Ethiopia and contributed significantly to the establishment of the EHNRI as a Centre of Excellence in the East African region. His expertise is in the area of laboratory diagnostics, laboratory management, service testing, laboratory design and planning, scientific research on infectious diseases with an emphasis on HIV, business development and operational research on various aspects of health systems in resource-restricted settings.
Professor Rinke de Wit holds a chair in Sustainable Healthcare at the University of Amsterdam, with a particular expertise in the development, field testing and application of affordable diagnostics for resource-restricted settings. Professor Rinke de Wit is supervising MSc and PhD students in various countries in Africa and in Europe and has published more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals.
Prof Rinke de Wit holds Board positions of COHSASA and the Medical Credit Fund (MCF), a fund that provides affordable loans to healthcare facilities in Africa. The MCF operates in close collaboration with the SafeCare Foundation, which is a key area of Prof Rinke de Wit’s current activities, while being based at COHSASA in Cape Town, South Africa. Prof Rinke de Wit has experience in the assessment of over 100 healthcare facilities in more than 10 countries in Africa and part of his current research is in the area of healthcare quality and safety in resource-restricted settings.