The European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) will be for the next three-year (2022 – 2025) allocate €3 million (US$3.2m) for a research project to support newborn and child health in Africa.

The Global Evidence, Local Adaptation (GELA) project aims to support South-South and South-North collaboration to help policymakers, researchers and civil society work together to develop evidence-based recommendations for newborn and child health priorities in Nigeria, Malawi, and South Africa.

The project will incorporate a multi-faceted, multidisciplinary research and capacity-strengthening programme using primary and secondary research, guideline-adaptation methodology and digital platforms to support delivery and dynamic local adaptation. This is enabled through a project team of African and international leaders in the field of evidence-based healthcare and guidelines methods, led by the World Health Organization (WHO), with adaptation and implementation led by the WHO Afro regional office, country offices and national ministries.

The project comes at a time when most sub-Saharan African countries have not met the Sustainable Development Goals for under-five mortality Despite progress in the health of newborns and children

To address these issues, policy makers and practitioners not only need evidence-based guidance on effective clinical care, they also need guidance on how to implement this care efficiently within the context of their own health systems, considering inequity (in health and access to services) caused by poverty and other factors.

The European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) is a public-public partnership between countries in Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, supported by the European Union. EDCTP focuses on enhancing research capacity and accelerating the development of new or improved medical interventions for the identification, treatment and prevention of poverty-related infectious diseases, including emerging and re-emerging diseases in sub-Saharan Africa, through all phases of clinical trials, with emphasis on phase II and III trials.

Photo courtesy / Pexels - Brett Sayles

Article by Jedidah Mwangi

https://www.samrc.ac.za/media-release/global-evidence-local-adaptation-gela-grant-enhance-evidence-informed-guideline#:~:text=GELA%20aims%20to%20maximise%20the,for%20newborn%20and%20child%20health.