The Africa Research Excellence Fund (AREF) is calling for applications from active, emerging health-researchers in Sub-Saharan Africa to participate in its sixth Essential Grant Writing Skills Workshop. This fully on-line programme for up to 6 participants will be held over eight 3-hour sessions during the weeks of 14 December 2020 and 4 January 2021.
Workshop aim: The Workshop aim is to enable talented early-career health- and health-related researchers to build skills to develop their own research and fellowship proposals of the quality required to win competitive international, regional and national funding.
What the Workshop will cover:
What the Workshop will not cover:
The workshop will not cover the following: how to manage research ethics approval; how to complete individual funders’ application forms; the details of intellectual property management; practice in research communication. The facilitators will use examples of real funding applications. However, they will not be assisting participants directly with the participants’ own specific proposals.
For more information visit https://www.africaresearchexcellencefund.org.uk/essential-grant-writing-skills-workshop-december-2020-january-2021
Read morePlease take note below of Wellcome Trust’s (UK) webinar on tips for applying to their International Masters, Training and Intermediate Fellowships. The next due dates for applications are:
Our EDCTP Fellows have been very active across the continent in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many countries around the world have been in varying degrees of lockdown and have relied heavily on advice from medical specialists, epidemiologists and researchers to guide their response. Please read our EDCTP monthly updates as we showcase the work of our Fellows each month https://www.edctp.org/web/app/uploads/2020/08/EDCTP-Update-July-2020.pdf
Bourema Kouriba - COVID-19 diagnosis in Mali
Professor Bourema Kouriba (a former EDCTP1 senior Fellow) is a pharmacist, immunologist, and the Director General of the Charles Mérieux Centre for Infectiology (CMCI) in Bamako, Mali. He leads a team responsible for diagnostics of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and teaches immunology at the Faculties of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bamako.
Since the Ebola epidemic in 2014, the institute developed its diagnostics capabilities with the support of the Institute of Microbiology of the German Army. The German government donated a mobile laboratory to the Malian Ministry of Health under the responsibility of CMCI, which participates with the National Institute of Public Health in epidemiological surveillance and the response to epidemics. Professor Kouriba: "On the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, CMCI and three other
centres were appointed by the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs to carry out the diagnostic side. Right now, we are in Timbuktu, a town in the north at 900 km from the capital Bamako. Here, our mobile laboratory is deployed to carry out the COVID19 molecular diagnostic tests. The day begins with the preparation of bleach solutions. Then we organise the team in the different workstations: one person at the reception, two people in the glove box, one person at the RNA extraction and the preparation of the master mix and another at the amplification."
"I take care of entering data and editing the results personally. As soon as the samples are received, their number is counted and communicated to the entire team. Once received, samples are conditioned in a container and transferred to the glove box team whose role is to inactivate these samples. This inactivation is carried out under the control of a witness who notes on the patient form all the steps performed by the operator. After inactivation, the samples are removed from the glove box for RNA extraction. At the same time, one person responsible for preparing the master mix prepares the necessary quantity of reagent. The last step is the real-time PCR. After two hours the results are analysed, interpreted, entered into the
database and printed for the doctor. At the end of the day, the glove compartment and the equipment are cleaned with concentrated bleach." There are several serious challenges:
1. The situation of consumables used for PCR, in particular for extraction kits. With the borders closed, the supply of reagents and consumables in the country is a very big challenge.
2. We receive most of our reagents through donors as the government cannot afford to buy them. Each donor buys reagents, which poses a problem for having a uniform algorithm to interpret the results.
3. Non-compliance with distancing and prevention measures which increases the number of contact cases, hence the number of samples to be tested per day. The laboratory works at least 10 hours a day to meet demand.
"We are in an unprecedented pandemic against which we are actually learning and responding at the same time. Timbuktu is in the north in an insecure area of Mali and the temperature fluctuates between 42 and 46 degrees Celsius. But it is our population and we must guarantee equity in access to care. Everyone should take this pandemic seriously and show solidarity with countries with limited resources because SARS-COV2 does not know borders and does not differentiate between people. Countries must be united in the fight against COVID-19."