The East African Leprosy Research Centre, Itesio, Kenya, is now known as The Centre for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases Control Research (CIPDCR) and is one of the 12 centres of the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI). It was established in 1947 as the Alupe leprosarium when the government of Kenya set up a hospital for this purpose in Alupe. The mandates of the Alupe leprosarium included management of leprosy as a referral centre for this disease in East Africa, as well as research on leprosy and other skin diseases.

The first director of the East Africa Leprosy Research Centre was Dr. James Ross Innes. He served between January 1954 and January 1957. He previously acted as the inter-territorial leprologist between June 1947 and December 1953. The second Director of the East Africa Leprosy Research Centre was Dr. John Michael Baring Garrod, who served between January 1957 and January 1963. The third director was Dr. Charles McConachy Ross who served between January 1963 and 24th June 1964. The fourth director was Dr. Yona Otsyula who served between 1964 and 1977. The fifth director, Dr. Malachi Dundu Owili who served between 1977 and 1983, replaced him. The sixth director was Dr. Patrick Orege who served between 1983 and 1998. He was succeeded by Dr. Nicholas Ikol Adungo who served between September 1998 and September 2008. The eighth and current director is Dr. Matilu Mwau.

In 1979, the East Africa Leprosy Research Centre was taken over by KEMRI following the breakup of the East African Community. Its name was changed to the Alupe Leprosy and Skin Disease Research Centre its mandate was appropriately expanded to foster research that field.

In 2000, the centre's name changed to Centre for Infectious and Parasitic Diseases Control Research (CIPDCR). Its mandate was expanded to include research on other diseases, such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. (Information extracted from KEMRI.org.)

History

According to the Report of the East African Interterritorial Leprologist, Itesio, 1953 written by James Ross Innes, “This project was already being discussed in 1952 by the British Empire Leprosy Relief Association (BELRA), by the East Africa High Commission (EAHC), and by the Colonial Medical Research Committee (CMRC), and by members of the Medical Research Council (MRC), and latterly by the Standing Advisory Committee for Research in East Africa (EASAMRC). The project originated with the British Empire Leprosy Relief Association and the Interterritorial Leprologist, and in the latter months of 1952 Dr Robert Cochrane, then the Medical Secretary of the British Empire Leprosy Relief Association was touring East Africa and helping in the discussions and choice of a possible site for the Research Centre. The project resolved itself into an attempt to provide a small research team which would site buildings and itself at one of the East African leprosaria, and tackle some of the outstanding problems of medical research in leprosy, for the benefit of East African and world leprosy control.”

In December 1953, the foundations were laid for the first buildings of this new centre, as planned by BELRA and of the East African governments, for a centre for leprosy research in east Africa, making use of one of the existing leprosaria of East Africa. The idea had been conceived in 1951, but had taken two years before it got to the building stage. It was largely financed by BELRA, with some government capital and an appreciable amount of recurrent cost being provided. The research centre was to be run under the auspices of the governments. The site of the new East African Research Centre was within the grounds of the Itesio Leprosarium of The Kenya Government. This was in itself a new institution, being the first new piece of work started by the Kenya Government in its determination to improve and develop its anti-leprosy work. Mr and Mrs C Wills were pioneering BELRA workers there. There was an inexhaustible supply of patients seeking admission. The nurse, Miss Maisie Owens, BELRA, and the doctor, (Dr. W. Harden-Smith, were the first medical staff. Roughly 75 miles to the north-west and south-west of Itesio were the well-established leprosaria of Kumi and Buluba and about 80 miles away was the only University College in East Africa, at Makerere, Kampala. The aim of the East African Leprosy Research Centre was to work on research projects of short-term and long-term type, according to advice from other workers, according to the needs of East Africa, and according to common-sense and inspiration. [Adapted from James Ross Innes, BELRA and EAHC, BELRA Quarterly magazine, January 1954 p.11]

In 1954 the first members of staff for the Research Centre, Mr. & Mrs. E. Bishop, began work as Laboratory Superintendent and Secretary. The BELRA stimulus was applied here by providing £18,500 towards the cost of buildings and equipment and guaranteeing the equivalent of salaries and allowances of all three European members of the permanent staff for the first five years. Assets provided from BELRA funds during the year included a fully equipped mobile laboratory for Dr. Ross Innes’s use on tours outside the centre, and the more extensive basic equipment for the permanent laboratory at Itesio itself [Annual Report 1954 p. 8]. In 1955 the laboratory and other buildings of the research centre were completed and research work began [Annual Report 1955 p.8].

Dr. Ross Innes was succeeded at Itesio by Dr. John Garrod, who had previously been the leprosy specialist in Northern Rhodesia [Annual Report 1956, p.3]. Mr. M.H. Smith, biochemist at Itesio came on leave in 1957 and resigned. BELRA made a grant of £4,000 for connecting the Research Station up with the Uganda electric power system in 1957 [Annual Report 1957, p.5]. In 1958 BELRA continued paying £4,000 per year (or half the cost of the actual expenditure up to a maximum of £4,000) to the East Africa High Commission towards the cost of maintaining Itesio for a further four years. Mr. Gordon Ellard, a biochemist, was sent out in October to replace Mr. Smith [Annual Report 1958, p.5]. In 1959 the name of the centre changed to Alupe.

Gordon Ellard made good progress in research into new curative drugs which had been tried out against leprosy. In February 1961 he went home on leave and did not return [Annual Report 1960, p.7]. In his report up to June 1960, Dr. Garrod gave an insight into the valuable work of the centre: Drug trials had been carried out using Diphenyl Thiourea, Diamino Diphenyl Sulphone (DDS), and Diethyl Dithilisophthalate (used in various combinations with the previous two). Arrangements were made in 1959 for medical supervision of the leprosarium to be carried out by the Director of the Research Centre. This enabled the Kenya Medical Department to withdraw their Medical Officer. Unfortunately they found difficulty in maintaining nursing staff at the centre which resulted in the work entailed in giving medical supervision being greater than was originally thought. This meant that work outside the settlement had to be stopped for the time being [Annual Report, 1960]. During 1961 work was done with labelled diphenylthiourea and injectable forms of the same drug. Studies were also made with labelled Etisul, and on DDSo, and investigations at present are being carried on with the Ethionamide, Vadrine, Methimazole, Sulphamethoxypyrazine, and in some aspects of immunology and bacteriology. It was found possible to demonstrate acid-fast bacilli in the venous blood of leprosy patients, by making thick films, then dehaemoglobinising, then staining with Ziehl-Neelsen stain [Annual Report 1961 p.13].

In 1962 a grant of £9,000 was made to help with the cost of providing an operating theatre and extra housing for patients and staff. In addition, the normal recurring grant of £4,000 was made towards the cost of maintaining this research centre. In April 1962 Dr. Garrod elected to retire under the compensation scheme introduced when the functions of the East Africa High Commission were taken over by the East African Common Services Organisation. No successor was immediately available and there was at the time no Kenya Government medical officer at the leprosarium. Drug trials had to cease for lack of adequate clinical surveillance and all patients were put on to standard treatment with DDS; their laboratory records were however maintained by the laboratory technician who remained in charge of the centre. Mr. Rhodes-Jones carried on the work until the end of January 1963 when Dr. C.M. Ross, OBE was appointed as the new director. The Centre continued to give laboratory service to the leprosarium during the year. Apart from routine laboratory examinations, 1,182 multiple skin smears were taken and examined for M.leprae. Six dressers from South and Central Nyanza were attached to the centre for six weeks to learn the rudiments of leprosy diagnosis and treatment [Annual Report 1962 pp. 7 and 15-16]. In 1963 the Leprosarium was under the control of the Kenyan Government and a grant of £9,030 was made with money provided by OXFAM to complete the operating theatre and extra housing, for which a similar sum had been given in 1962 by BELRA. A further grant of £4,000 was made by BELRA for general research work.

The year 1963 brought success in treating the in-patients and out-patients of the leprosarium, and also in treating the patients in the clinics which were supervised by the Research Centre. Patients were treated according to the type of their disease, their conditions and age; lepra reaction and fever was a rare occurrence in the leprosarium; a low scale of Dapsone dosage was introduced to reduce reaction, which was very common in the Kenyan patients treated at the Health Centres where high doses of Dapsone were given [Annual Report 1963, pp. 8-9, 17]. In 1964 the grant to Alupe was reduced to £2,000. The centre suffered a great loss in the death of Dr. Ross, who died in Nairobi on 24th June 1964. Apart from the personal loss by all leprologists and patients, this loss of a director fell heavily on the research centre which was in the process of adaptation. Dr. Y. Otsyula, a Kenyan, was appointed as Director, but unfortunately he had no research assistants and no senior laboratory technician [Annual Report 1964, p. 14].