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European trials partnership releases recommendations from expert meetings

27 Nov 2009

Paul Chinnock

Source: European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (see original article)

The European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) has released a series of recommendations on the way forward for clinical research addressing malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

EDCTP was created in 2003 as a European response to the global health crisis caused by malaria, TB and HIV/AIDS. Made up of 16 European and 46 sub-Saharan African countries, it fosters African ownership of, and commitment to, research. EDCTP’s core aim is to fund phase II and III clinical trials in sub-Saharan Africa using the European Commission’s research budget, with matching funds from individual European countries and other donations.

The recommendations just released are based on discussions involving 450 scientific and policy experts held during the Fifth EDCTP Forum which took place in Arusha, Tanzania in October. The recommendations may be seen in full on the Forum blog.

Malaria

EDCTP is already supporting malaria vaccine trials. The expert meeting drew attention to problems in the following areas: acquisition and maintenance of equipment and infrastructure, maintenance of sites between activities, and retention of staff. The experts also recommended that EDCTP should support the development of further candidate malaria vaccines.

As regards the treatment of uncomplicated malaria, the recommendation was that there should be more focus on special target groups such as infants. In addition, in response to the appearance of parasite resistance to artemisinin, EDCTP was advised to support the development of non-artemisinin combinations.

The experts also advised support for the development of new products for the treatment of severe malaria and for the treatment of malaria in pregnancy. Support should be continued for studies of intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) and in infants (IPTi).

Tuberculosis

The TB expert meeting produced a long list of research priorities where support is required. These included:

• point-of-care diagnostics

• active case detection

• diagnostic tests that differentiate between latent and active TB

• reducing diagnostic delay

• strategies to tackle co-infection with HIV

• shortening the length of treatment

• reducing drug resistance

• improving compliance

• modification of BCG vaccine and investigation of other potential TB vaccines

• detection and treatment in children

• bioinformatics approaches

• operational research.

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