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Project Topic
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The Central Africa Network on Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and Malaria (CANTAM) was established in January 2009 to strengthen and/or develop capacities for the conduct of clinical trials on poverty related diseases in three countries and 7 institutions in Central Africa (Cameroon, Republic of Congo and Gabon). Over the past 5 years, CANTAM significantly developed laboratory infrastructure and trained a range of staff required for the conduct of high quality, GCP/GLP level clinical trials. CANTAM activities led to development of local, regional and international networking and collaborations with significant impact for example at University M. Ngouabi, RoC. To further strengthen and enhance CANTAM’s research and capacity development program, and to establish more effective regional networking of relevant expertise, CANTAM decided to expand the network to include institutions from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Switzerland, United Kingdom and France, and additional institutions from the Republic of Congo and Gabon as partners of CANTAM2. To bring HIV/TB lacking expertise within CANTAM, UNZA-UCLMS (Zambia) institution was invited to be a close collaborator. Based on the business and action plan 2016 to 2020, CANTAM2 will also include characterization of the most prevalent co-infections and co-morbidities in different cohorts and pharmacokinetics and hepatotoxicity studies of malaria, HIV and TB drugs. Training and monitoring of drug resistance to malaria, TB and HIV drugs shall continue. New approaches to increased detection and optimal management of people with TB and TB/HIV co-infection, malaria and other neglected infectious diseases will be developed through a number of interventions which will evaluate new diagnostics, drugs, host-directed therapies and vaccines.Capacity will be increased for regional pharmacovigilance expertise, shared biobanks for biomarkers, and immunological studies, and development of laboratory capacity and staffing expertise for new and emerging infectious diseases threats. We will increase the critical mass of researchers and trained laboratory staff with improved capacity of accredited laboratories for conducting GCP/GLP clinical trials. In light of the Ebola outbreak we will include the development of a flexible, ready-to-apply methodological framework, including regulatory and ethical aspects, for the immediate implementation of trials and other clinical studies in the early phase of any infectious outbreak which threatens regional health security.Regional training platforms will be consolidated by activities conducted in close collaboration with the East, South and West Africa NOEs supported by EDCTP. This provides a unique opportunity for cross-network collaborations between Francophone and Anglophone Africa and is expected to have a multiplier effect.
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