One Medicine Africa-UK Research Capacity Development Partnership Programme for Infectious Diseases in Southern Africa

Project Summary:

Funder: Wellcome Trust

Goal
To enhance the research capacity of southern African institutions for infectious diseases by targeted postgraduate programmes at MSc, PhD and Postdoctoral levels as well as professional continuing development (CPD) delivered through taught and distance learning plus apprenticeship research projects.

The focus of the science will be the detection, identification and monitoring of infectious diseases of humans and animals, in a one medicine framework. The programme will be delivered through a smart partnership between institutions in southern Africa and the medical and veterinary members of the London International Development Centre, specifically the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Royal Veterinary College.

Funder: Wellcome Trust
Goal
To enhance the research capacity of southern African institutions for infectious diseases by targeted postgraduate programmes at MSc, PhD and Postdoctoral levels as well as professional continuing development (CPD) delivered through taught and distance learning plus apprenticeship research projects.
The focus of the science will be the detection, identification and monitoring of infectious diseases of humans and animals, in a one medicine framework. The programme will be delivered through a smart partnership between institutions in southern Africa and the medical and veterinary members of the London International Development Centre, specifically the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Royal Veterinary College.
Activities
The project will enhance the capacity of medical and veterinary institutions of southern Africa for the detection, identification and monitoring of infectious diseases of humans and animals. This will be done through a 10-year partnership between the southern African institutions, coordinated by SACIDS (Southern Africa Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance) and the LSHTM and RVC, coordinated by LIDC, in order to develop One Health training packages for MSc and CPDs in epidemiology and molecular biology plus targeted pilot PhD and Postdoctoral research projects under the joint supervision of southern African and UK scientists.
All the packages will be offered by the southern African universities in the consortium. The MSc and CPDs will be tailor-made for African conditions as taught and distance-learning programmes. The PhDs and Postdoctoral fellowships will be on a sandwich basis. After the first 5-year phase, this Africa-UK Partnership will design a joint research programme for epidemic and emerging infectious diseases of humans and animals for the second Phase of the 10-year partnership.
This should lead to improved national and regional surveillance systems for infectious diseases and the development of evidence-based, cost-effective policies for surveillance, early warning, response and risk management through sector specific and inter-sectoral collaboration.
Workpages
WP 1. Enhancing the Biosafety and Quality management environment
WP 2. Enhancing skills through taught and distancelearning courses
WP 3. Enhancing ICT support to learning

wp 4. Enhancing skills through research apprenticeships

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