WANETAM-4

The challenge

Over the past two decades, clinical research capacity in sub-Saharan Africa has begun to grow significantly. Research networks, including the regional networks of excellence funded through successive EDCTP programmes, have made major contributions to this capacity building. However, the region still faces multiple infectious disease challenges and frequent outbreaks, emphasising the continuing need to strengthen the clinical research ecosystem.

The West Africa Network of Excellence for Clinical Trials in TB, AIDS and Malaria (WANETAM) has previously received three tranches of EDCTP funding. These enabled the WANETAM team to establish a highly effective network of clinical research sites, supporting multi-centre clinical studies, providing training and career development opportunities for young African scientists, and developing their research leadership skills.

Among its many achievements, WANETAM has established genome surveillance networks for multiple infections, created a network of data managers, and developed quality assurance systems for clinical trial laboratories within the network. 

The project

In the WANETAM-4 project, the network will continue to conduct a range of research studies in its core areas of interest, while also strengthening its contributions to capacity building, leveraging its platform for cross-disciplinary research, and building closer ties with national public health institutes. The network has expanded to include institutions in 12 sub-Saharan African countries, including anglophone, francophone and lusophone countries, to overcome linguistic barriers to collaboration.

• Tuberculosis: The network’s TB research will focus on characterising TB-associated multimorbidity across the life course, risk factors and links to drug resistance. It will also provide a platform for TB vaccine and other trials.
• Malaria: The malaria workstream will work with national malaria control programmes on the implementation of new interventions to control malaria and advance malaria elimination. It will also provide a platform in four settings for adaptive trials of interventions, and also undertake surveillance activities to track drug and insecticide resistance.
• HIV/AIDS: Research is focusing on enhancing early infant diagnosis and viral load monitoring, collecting data on drug resistance mutations, and delivering training on vaccine R&D. Studies will also test long-acting antiretroviral interventions, effects of treatment on the microbiome, and characteristics of the HIV reservoir in the long-term virally suppressed individuals.
• Pandemic preparedness: The network is hosting Special Collaborative Training on Epidemic Preparedness and Surveillance (SCTEPS), a capacity-building programme on pandemic preparedness for 30 researchers and public health officials from 13 national public health institutes.
• Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs): Activities are focusing on integrated surveillance of NTDs, improving capacity for diagnosis based on skin lesion characteristics, and strengthening genomic surveillance of cholera and environmental surveillance of Lassa fever.

Cross-cutting capacity-building activities have a particular focus on building scientific leadership skills. The network will also support infrastructure upgrades at less well-developed research sites, provide courses on institutional strengthening, and deliver training in key areas of clinical trial development and management, including trial oversight and pharmacovigilance.

Impact

WANETAM-4 will continue the scientific research programmes and capacity building begun in previous incarnations of the network. It will:

• Provide a platform for high-quality, multi-centre studies in key areas of infectious disease.
• Strengthen research capacity at sites with less experience in hosting clinical research.
• Build research expertise and the research leadership skills of promising early-career researchers.
• Facilitate enriched collaborations across countries, often siloed because of linguistic barriers. 

Through its activities, WANETAM-4 will generate important new knowledge on poverty-related infectious diseases, while also creating opportunities for more ambitious clinical studies and providing training for the next generation of African research leaders.