2024 End of the year message from Mr Abdoulie Barry, Acting Executive Director

23 December 2024

Dear Colleagues, Partners and Friends,

As we approach the end of 2024 and look forward to celebrating Christmas and New Year with our families and friends, it is important to look back and highlight what we have been able to achieve together this year. Highlights of 2024 include:

  • IMPROVE-2 and MAMAH clinical trials demonstrated that adding the antimalarial drug dihydroartemisinin–piperaquine to daily co-trimoxazole reduces the risk of malaria infection in pregnant women living with HIV.
  • The CALINA study, part of the PAMAfrica project, showed that a new formulation of Coartem® (artemether-lumefantrine) can be used to treat malaria in babies weighing less than 5kg.
  • The KALUMI trial, conducted by the WANECAM-2 project showed positive results for malaria treatment with ganaplacide-lumefantrine in children, aged between 2 years and 6 months, leading to the start of the phase 3 KALUMA trial to evaluate this drug combination as a new antimalarial treatment to combat emerging resistance to artemisinin drugs.
  • In the field of neglected infectious diseases, following the positive scientific opinion by the European Medicines Agency in December 2023 for arpraziquantel to treat schistosomiasis in preschool-aged children, the Pediatric Praziquantel Consortium achieved another important milestone in May 2024: the World Health Organization (WHO) has now included arpraziquantel in its List of Prequalified Medicines, facilitating access of affected populations to this medicine. Results from the HAT-r-ACC project led to a change in WHO treatment guidelines in October 2024 to recommend fexinidazole as first-line treatment for T.b. rhodesiense sleeping sickness, following a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency in December 2023 for fexinidazole as a treatment for T.b. rhodesiense sleeping sickness.
  • The PROMISE-EPI study showed that an innovative intervention package combining existing tools, including infant screening, maternal viral load monitoring, and extended postnatal prophylaxis can protect infants from HIV and can be implemented effectively in health systems in Burkina Faso and Zambia.
  • The TB-CAPT project demonstrated the efficacy of the WHO-approved Xpert MTB/XDR test in detecting Mycobacterium tuberculosis and resistance to drugs directly from sputum samples. Comprehensive resistance results were obtained in 84% of cases compared to 66% with routine testing. Turnaround time was reduced from 15 days to just 23 hours. This innovative testing approach can increase the availability of diagnostic results and accelerate the diagnostic process, ensuring patients start TB treatment promptly.
  • With funding from the UK Department of Health and Social Care, supporting a new cohort of women to obtain their PhDs at the EDCTP Regional Networks of Excellence. This programme is an important step in closing the gender gap in health research across sub-Saharan Africa. 

As you know, the projects highlighted above align with the EDCTP’s mission to provide new and improved interventions, to address clinical needs in underserved populations, such as pregnant women, babies, and children, and to tackle the challenges of antimicrobial resistance.

In 2024, the EDCTP Association welcomed Eswatini and Namibia as new members, taking the number of countries in the Association to 30 African and 15 European. The EDCTP Association is an equal partner in the Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking with the European Union, represented by the European Commission. The EDCTP Association, with the support and commitment of members, increased its indicative contribution to Global Health EDCTP3 to €550 million.

The EDCTP Association held finance and project management training for EDCTP2 and Global Health EDCTP3 grant holders in Maputo, Mozambique, Nairobi, Kenya, and Dakar, Senegal. The trainings are conducted by the EDCTP Association in collaboration with the Global Health EDCTP3 Joint Undertaking and aim to provide the skills needed to manage the financial and technical aspects of EDCTP2- and Global Health EDCTP3-funded grants.

As 2024 draws to a close, we look forward to the Twelfth EDCTP Forum, which will take place from 15-20 June 2025 in Kigali, Rwanda. Hosted by the Ministry of Health of Rwanda and the Rwanda Biomedical Centre, and jointly organised by Global Health EDCTP3 and the EDCTP Association, the theme for the 2025 Forum is “Better health through global research partnerships”. We look forward to seeing you all in Kigali in June.

I wish you all and your families a happy festive season.

Best regards,

Mr Abdoulie Barry
Acting Executive Director and Director of Finance and Administration, EDCTP Association