Dr Deogratias Arnold Nkya

Dr Deogratias Arnold Nkya is a paediatric cardiologist at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS). He is part of Cardiology at MUHAS and is also affiliated with the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health. His clinical work is in the Department of Pediatric Cardiology at the Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute (JKCI) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's national cardiac referral centre. There he diagnoses and treats heart disease in children, with a focus on catheter-based procedures for congenital heart defects. His research looks at how common childhood heart disease is in Tanzania and how it is treated. He contributed to a six-year review of heart conditions in children seen at JKCI. He also worked on the Tanzania Pulse Oximetry Study, which tested newborn screening for critical congenital heart disease in more than 10,000 babies. His other studies cover early surgical outcomes for Tetralogy of Fallot, infective endocarditis and dilated cardiomyopathy in children, and rheumatic heart disease without symptoms found through school-based ultrasound screening. He has also studied quality of life for children with heart disease and their families. This work includes translating a family impact questionnaire into Swahili and checking that it works reliably. In interventional cardiology, he has reported on closing large congenital coronary fistulae by catheter. He was also part of the team that carried out Tanzania's first transcatheter pulmonary valve replacements. He has co-authored work on sickle cell anaemia treated with hydroxyurea and on public health topics such as non-communicable disease prevention. Dr Nkya holds MD and MMed degrees. He has been affiliated with the Paediatric Cardiology Unit of the University of Pretoria at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in South Africa. His publications have been cited 55 times on Google Scholar, where he has an h-index of 4. As a member of the MUHAS faculty, he combines academic work with clinical service at JKCI. He works with partners abroad, including researchers at Utrecht University on newborn screening and Cleveland Clinic clinicians on transcatheter valve procedures. In 2020 he worked in the catheterisation laboratory during a Save a Child's Heart mission at JKCI.