EU announces new research partnership on infectious disease in Africa

The European Union has enlisted the Lisbon-based Gulbenkian Foundation to boost research into poverty-related infectious diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Gulbenkian will join the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), a publicly funded research project which works to strengthen, or in some cases establish, research capacity in developing countries. Its raison d'être is to accelerate clinical trials that lay the ground for new drugs to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis (TB) and tropical disease.

Carlos Moedas, the EU Research Commissioner, spelled out the urgency of the research. “This continent alone accounts for 90% of the deaths from malaria and tuberculosis while three quarters of AIDS related deaths and two thirds of all people with HIV live in Sub-Saharan Africa,” he said in a statement. 

Medicines in Africa that show early promise against these three main diseases in small-scale clinical trials often shrink away, mainly because poor countries lack the money and infrastructure for larger trials.

Gulbenkian was specifically recruited to lend its expertise in Mozambique, a Portuguese-speaking country and one of the places the project is active. 

Founded in 2003, EDCTP is a partnership of 13 EU member states, along with Norway, Switzerland and sub-Saharan African countries. For its first phase, 2007 – 2013, EDCTP worked off €200 million from the European Commission and matching funds from European member states. 

Continued funding 

For EDCTP to get funding from Horizon 2020, the EU’s research 2014 – 2020 research programme, it was always going to have to generate significant enthusiasm in Africa – something it achieved.

“Seventy five per cent of EDCTP funding was allocated to African research institutions, while more than 70% of all EDCTP-funded activities were led by African researchers,” said Gert Onne van de Klashorst, EDCTP’s communication officer, commenting on the first phase.

A recent study on the initiative confirmed that this level of participation, “is a sign that the EDCTP programme has been embraced in sub-Saharan Africa.”

For the next generation, van de Klashorst promises we will see, “a stronger partnership, with more European and African countries participating, increased collaboration with pharma companies, philanthropic organisations and development agencies.”

EDCTP is active in 11 African countries and will run until 2024. 

EU statement on Gulbenkian Foundation here 

More on EDCTP project here and link to open funding competitions here