ADVANCING CLINICAL TRIALS AND EPIDEMIC PREPAREDNESS RESEARCH CAPACITY IN AFRICA (ACT-PREP)

Infectious diseases such as COVID-19 and Ebola are leading contributors to the high morbidity and mortality in sub-Saharan African (SSA), yet these countries have inadequate capacity to rapidly conduct clinical trials and other public research in preparedness and epidemic response. The ACT-PREP initiative seeks to enhance clinical research capacities for preparedness and response in SSA. With leadership from Makerere University School of Public Health, ACT-PREP will create a framework for equitable collaboration among 10 diverse African and 2 European institutions working closely with national public health institutes and Africa CDC to enhance disease surveillance, detection, and institutionalise research as a critical pillar of disease response. ACT-PREP will strengthen capacities of partner institutions and actors in the research regulatory ecosystem and integrate the training into PhD and PostDoc training to reach more young researchers. ACT-PREP will promote sharing of expertise, experience, resources, datasets, and technology within and across countries to strengthen clinical research, ethics and regulatory capacities, and upgrade laboratory and surveillance systems across institutions and countries in SSA. The research capacity enhancement will adapt a framework from our previous work between Makerere University and Karolinska Institute and the WHO Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research framework. Additional strategies will include One health & AI systems to guide prediction, detection and rapid response to epidemics, and streamlined regulatory processes for timely clinical trial deployment and monitoring. This network will leverage immense in-kind resources from partners to train at least 100 fellows/other trainees annually, strengthen regional collaboration and capacity to conduct high quality trials, significantly advance epidemic preparedness and response and ultimately lower morbidity and mortality due to infectious diseases in SSA.