The 3rd pillar of the global strategy to end tuberculosis encourages investment in research and innovation, to develop new solutions to the challenges posed by tuberculosis. With this in mind, WHO/TDR, in collaboration with Expertise France and WARN/CARN-TB, has launched a program to strengthen the operational research capacities of Africa’s NTPs. The aim of this program is to equip NTP staff in the region with the skills needed to design and implement operational research studies on tuberculosis.
The 4-module training program began on November 4-8, 2024 with Module 1, dedicated to research protocol design. This module, which was delivered during a 5-day virtual workshop, brought together over a hundred participants from some twenty African countries. Following the principle of learning by doing, participants from the same country were invited to choose a single research theme, which the country would implement during the training, under the supervision of a mentor.
Module 2 will take place in the first quarter of 2025, while the last two modules will take place at the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026 respectively.