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The LiberHetica and BERC-Luso consortia will meet on the 26th March 2021 to discuss about Biomedical Ethics and Regulatory Capacity Building in Sub-Saharan African countries.
The BERC-Luso and LiberHetica are two projects funded by the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) aimed at strenghting ethics and regulatory capacities for clinical trials by partnerships between African and European countries, and involving 5 Sub-Saharan African countries (Liberia, Angola, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique and Cape-Verde) and 2 European countries (U.K. and Portugal).

For more information visit https://www.liberhetica.org/2021/03/09/biomedical-ethics-and-regulatory-capacity-building-international-dialogues/

The Global Forum on Bioethics in Research (GFBR) will hold a two-day meeting in Montreux, Switzerland on 28-29 November 2023 on the topic: “The ethics of health research priority setting”. The Forum prioritises the participation of colleagues from low- and middle- income countries (LMICs), and a call for applications is open with a deadline of 15 May 2023.

More information https://www.gfbr.global/news/gfbr-2023-call-for-applications-now-open/

A call for nominations for experts to serve on a Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on Immunization Working Group on COVID-19 Vaccines and Vaccination has been posted on the SAGE website: https://www.who.int/immunization/policy/sage/en/

This SAGE working group will be set up with the aim of establishing an independent process through SAGE to advise WHO and its Member States on the use of initially pre-licensed vaccines, followed by updates as additional information on product use becomes available. The timeliness of setting up this group will ensure a coordinated approach with the vaccine Research and Development (R&D) community, in order to accelerate timelines and maximize global efforts to make evidence-informed policy decisions for the best use of a vaccine against COVID-19. The ultimate goal of a vaccine against COVID-19 is to rapidly contain the pandemic, save lives, protect health care systems, and restore global economies.

The SAGE Working Group is established with a program of work to:
(1) Provide continuous review of the available evidence on the progress of candidate vaccines against COVID-19, and provide regular updates to SAGE;
(2) Provide guidance for the development of prediction models to determine the optimal age groups and target populations for vaccine introduction and guide vaccine introduction for optimal impact, and contribute to updates of target product profiles of vaccines for outbreak and for endemic use;
(3) Prepare policy advice to SAGE on the accelerated use of vaccines (pre-licensure and post-licensure) to mitigate the public health impact of COVID-19, to possibly curtail the ongoing pandemic, as well as to prevent or reduce the risk of spread of disease in the future. This will include recommendations for early allocation of vaccines when vaccine supply is still limited;
(4) Provide guidance to ensure equitable access to vaccination, and guidance on the safety of vaccines when safety data from wider population use become available, in close collaboration with Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS).

The virtual conference will be held in the evenings from 16:00 – 20:00 over 2 days. We will invite renown local, regional and international speakers from the HIV community to discuss and debate the impact COVID-19 has had on the South African and regional HIV epidemic. The speakers will reflect on progress made in the HIV response in the context of COVID-19, the impact the pandemic has had on people living with HIV and on HIV/TB service delivery. We will also touch on COVID-19 vaccines in people living with HIV.

SA AIDS in-person Conference 2022
The in-person conference will be postponed to 2022 when we hope we will be able to host the conference in Durban.

For more information visit http://saaids.co.za/