MALARIA: AMANET

As we come to the end of the year 2010 and approach the New Year, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all our partners in the AMANET network as well as all stakeholders who have been collaborating with us at various levels. It is through your support and commitment that AMANET managed to accomplish the objectives which were planned for the year 2010. In order to take advantage of its experience and wide network of trained experts, AMANET is working towards providing services beyond malaria and include other diseases affecting Africa.
As most of you may already know, AMANET has been sponsoring clinical trials in Africa, a role rarely played by African based and African led organizations. AMANET is the coordinator of GMZ2 consortium which was established, among other things, to conduct phase IIb multi-centre clinical trials at four sites, namely Banfora in Burkina Faso, Navrongo in Ghana, Lambaréné in Gabon and Iganga in Uganda. It was during the course of the year 2010 that the phase IIb vaccine trial of the GMZ2 was initiated at Lambaréné in Gabon. The vaccine trial is to be initiated at the remaining three sites during the course of 2011.
As the year 2010 came to an end, concerted efforts by AMANET to wind up the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded pan-African project aimed at building institutional capacities in Health Research Ethics in Africa intensified. The last two workshops of the project, one on Advanced Health Research Ethics (HRE) for investigators and the other one on harmonization of standard operating procedures for Ethics Review Committees (ERCs), were successfully organized in March and June 2010 as per the approved timeframe. An end-of-project evaluation conducted by independent reviewers during the last quarter of 2010 showed that overall the project has strengthened the ethical review processes in Africa in terms of infrastructure, training of members and day-to-day operations. The four web-based courses being offered by AMANET, namely Basic HRE, French version of the Basic HRE, Advanced HRE and Good Clinical Practice (GCP) continued to attract candidates from Africa and beyond, with a total of over 2500 candidates having enrolled for the courses and more than 1000 having successfully completed the various courses and awarded certificates.
During the course of 2010, AMANET further cemented its status as one of the major players in the health sector in Africa by being a partner in major projects meant to benefit Africa. AMANET is the coordinator of the Afroimmunoassay (AIA) Network which involves eight African institutions, collaborating with three European institutions. The main aim of the AIA Network is to standardize serological methods of measuring immune responses to potential candidate malaria vaccines. The AIA network has entered a second phase of activity in partnership with the European Malaria Vaccine Development Association Consortium (EMVDA) so as to expand the network and include new partners.
AMANET is participating in REDMAL which is a consortium of 4 European and 2 African institutions. This consortium is being coordinated by Radbound University Nijmegen Medical Centre (RUNMC). The main objective of this consortium is to develop a transmission blocking (TB) malaria vaccine named PF10C-MBP. The candidate vaccine is a subunit of pfs48/45, which is the most advanced EU-developed malaria transmission blocking vaccine candidate.
AMANET is also a partner in an international collaborative project entitled “African Vector Control: New Tools”, Avec Net, which involves a total of seventeen partners drawn from Africa and Europe. Due to start in January 2011 AvecNet project aims at contributing towards prevention of malaria through improved or new vector control tools and strategies. Having successfully hosted the MIM secretariat for the first time in Africa, AMANET completed the transition of the MIM Secretariat to the Biotechnology Centre, University of Yaoundé 1, Cameroon during 2010. As the host of MIM, AMANET organized a very successful MIM conference in October 2009, if number of participants, number of presentations, quality of deliberations and publication of plenary papers in the Malaria Journal are anything to go by.
It was a pleasure for AMANET to be requested to organize HRE and GCP training for members of the Central Africa Network on Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and Malaria (CANTAM). One GCP course was held in Brazzaville, Congo and both GCP and HRE were held in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Participants were drawn from Cameroon, Gabon, DRCongo and Burkina Faso. The University of Liberia also called upon AMANET to conduct HRE training of members of the ERC of the university.
In the New Year, AMANET plans to further build on the experiences and successes of 2010 and the previous years in order to expand its operations and offer additional services that include monitoring & evaluation, implementation research, product deployment, clinical trial site management (SMO role), training in various specialized areas, scientific writing and consultancy in the various specialized fields. We are confident that with your continued support, we will succeed in our endeavors aimed at mitigating the negative impact of the huge disease burden affecting Africa. I, on my own behalf and on behalf of the Board of Trustees, the Scientific Committee and the Secretariat of AMANET, would like to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2011.