Director of the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), Prof. Gordon Awandare, has been awarded a £100,000 grant from the Tackling Infections to Benefit Africa (TIBA) partnership under its Rapid Impact Projects scheme.
The grant is one of nine, £100,000 each, awarded to support proposed projects by TIBA's African partners to capture the diverse challenges of healthcare systems in Africa.
The Rapid Impact projects will look to address a current knowledge gap which is leading to either a non-deployment of diagnostics or interventions or a lack of operational knowledge to improve the health of affected populations. Prof. Awandare's work will focus on the effects of Artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) on the dynamics of Plasmodium falciparum, P. malariae and P. ovale infection in Ghana.
The other TIBA Rapid Impact projects are:
- Nthabi Phaladze (Botswana) – 'A situational analysis of schistosomiasis among communities in the Okavango Delta.'
- Samson Kinyanjui (Kenya) – 'Validation of novel merozoite targets for new vaccines against Plasmodium falciparum malaria'
- Nadine Rujeni (Rwanda) – 'Evaluation of the impact of e-health in the management of severe malaria cases in Rwanda.'
- Moses Chimbari (South Africa) – 'Preparation for an effective Mass Drug Administration Programme for South Africa: Elucidating burden, coverage, efficacy issues.'
- Maowia Mukhtar (Sudan) – 'Preparation for Malaria elimination from Khartoum State: Improvement of the health system and detection of persistent transmission foci of Plasmodium species.'
- Upendo Mwingira (Tanzania) – 'Monitoring of Lymphatic Filariasis in persistent hotspot transmission zones.'
- Charles Waiswa (Uganda) – 'Stability of T. b. rhodesiense in domestic cattle in Eastern Central Uganda and implications for rHAT and AAT control.'
- Simbarashe Rusakaniko (Zimbabwe) – 'Adapting international criteria for the diagnosis of drug/immunization-related auto-immunity and allergies for specificity to African populations (Zimbabwe)'
