Strengthening Institutional Networks and Building Capacity for Epidemiological Preparedness in Africa (SINCEP-Africa)

The INDEPTH Network has sixteen (16) member clinical trial sites in ten countries in Africa with representations in three language blocks in Africa (anglophone, francophone and lusophone). The total population under health and demographic surveillance (HDSS) in the 16 member sites is 2,983,092. New institutions from Cote D'Ivoire, Kenya, and DRC have joined this partnership.The overarching goal of the proposal is to create and sustain core health experts by building strong training schemes; developing sustainable partnerships; and providing appropriate infrastructure that enhances the epidemic preparedness and response capabilities among regional networks. We will achieve this through collaborative training; capacity building; and knowledge sharing that contribute to improved health and the control and reduction of infectious disease outbreaks in Sub-Saharan Africa. The achievement of these objective will be facilitated by longitudinal surveillance within the HDSS for human population dynamics, pathogen dynamics within the community and the study of non-human, environmental and climatic factors. The data collation, aggregation, analysis, warehousing will be based on an AI (CTI Global- Community Transformation and Innovation- CTI LifeHealth) driven health information management system that will allow streaming of the data to a central data base from all the research sites thus allowing real time analysis and sharing back the data sets with the sites and central warehousing. The information generated will be co-shared and co-hosted by the Africa CDC for use to inform policies in the region. We will work closely with other partners, regulators and ethics committees in development and approval ahead of time epidemic/pandemic disease agnostic protocols to facilitate timely deployment in case of epidemics in country and within the sub-region.