Capacity Development

Coordinators:

Prof Feiko ter Kuile (LSTM, UK), Prof Clara Menendez (IS Global, Spain), Prof Umberto D’Alessandro (Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium) (funded by EDCTP), Vienna School of Clinical Research (Austria)

Objective

To develop disease endemic country (DEC) research capacity and a network of excellence for malaria in pregnancy research in disease endemic countries by training and professional development of DEC scientists and the building of infrastructure and transfer of technology.

Methods

The Malaria in Pregnancy Consortium identified a research strategy that could lead to significant improvements in maternal and child health in malaria endemic regions. Implementation of this research strategy required a coordinated effort between several research institutions around the world. The capacity development programme included general training sessions on different clinical research related topics (e.g. Good Clinical Practice, Biostatistics, Clinical Epidemiology, Ethics, etc) as well as the education of local trainers on these topics.

Programme also included infrastructure upgrade of research centres and several training programmes based on intensive short-term training courses offered locally as well as long term educational programmes (MSc, PhD, and Postdoctoral programmes).

Results

Capacity development activities included three MSc students in Kenya, Malawi and Gambia, and three PhD students in Ghana, Mali, and Malawi. In addition, short courses on GCP + advanced GCP, Research Ethics, Project Management, Trial Site Management, Introduction to Clinical Epidemiology, Publication workshop, and Train the Trainer were provided to 61 participants from within the MiP Consortium partnership. Online courses were made available to additional participants.

This project benefited directly from these short and long-term training opportunities for trial staff at sites in Burkina Faso, Ghana, The Gambia, Malawi, Mali and Zambia. Two of the three PhD students coordinated the clinical trials in Mali and Malawi, and the third was involved in nested studies, primarily in Ghana. The project also provided substantial infrastructure support to the participating laboratories in west Africa, Malawi and Zambia, including provision of office space and upgrading of laboratories, resources which benefited the trials in these countries.