West African Network for TB, AIDS and Malaria (WANETAM 3)

The West Africa Network of Excellence for TB, AIDS, and Malaria (WANETAM) has evolved and developed over several years, from the first EDCTP grant in 2009-2013 to the consolidation phase in 2016-2019 (WANETAM-2).

The initial group of 14 partner institutions in 7 West African countries expanded to 16 institutions in 9 countries (of either Anglophone, Francophone, or Lusophone).

For this WANETAM-3 proposal, the number of involved institutions has grown to 25, of which 21 are from 10 West African countries and 4 from 4 European countries.

WANETAM-1 allowed clinical and laboratory skills training, international ISO 15189 laboratory accreditation of 3 Institutional laboratories and the conduction of two major international collaborative clinical trials in HIV (1-3).

WANETAM-2 built on these achievements and further strengthened targeted trainings on strategic skills; developed the shared use of platforms and resources; supported weaker institutions towards GCLP and laboratory accreditation, and developed training and mentorship plan to support career and leadership development of talented individuals.

The vision of WANETAM-2 is “Attaining sustainable expertise for conducting clinical trials, research and implementing control of poverty-related diseases in West Africa”.

WANETAM-3 will build on the activities of the disease-defined work packages (WPs): TB, Malaria, HIV, Neglected Tropical Diseases, Emerging Infections response and preparedness and the inclusion of the Cross-Cutting Trainings that strengthens capacity of individuals in specialised skills needed in clinical research and the capacity of supporting infrastructure.

The WPs will consolidate our mission to achieve sustainable capacity and multi-institutional collaboration in clinical research through activities that premise on 1. Strategic Project-based training to build Research leadership; 2. Hands-on operational and clinical studies that inform clinical trial plans and prevention; 3.

Resource & Platform Infrastructure development; 4. Surveillance to build evidence-base for clinical trial; 5. Diagnosis to support intervention; and 6. Building on quality assurance and expanding laboratory accreditation.

Researcher leadership trainings are also proposed through grant writing and mentorship masterclass training workshops, pilot studies and work-visits. Scientists will be supported for grant applications to achieve sustainability.

The generation of Data will increase during WANETAM-3 from the TB multi-drug resistance surveillance and diagnostic work, the Malaria elimination cluster-randomised studies and HIV drug-resistance cohorts and therefore, calls for the establishment of WANETAM Database Management and Sharing platform.

This proposal will also strengthen ethics capacity.

The network will respond to the need to strengthen research in COVID-19; work will be done on the impact of covid-19 on the disease entities and support the partner laboratories in diagnosis and sequencing of Covid-19 strains.