NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Tackling Infections to Benefit Africa, The University of Edinburgh

TIBA is an Africa-led, wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary research programme that explores and draws lessons from the ways that different African health systems tackle infectious diseases. TIBA aims to harness the expertise and technical capacity in biomedical and social sciences at the University of Edinburgh and our partners in nine African countries to reduce the burden and threat of infectious diseases in Africa by informing and influencing health policy and strengthening health systems. The TIBA partners are: University of Botswana, Botswana Institute for Technology Research and Innovation (BITRI), University of Ghana, KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Kenya, University of Rwanda, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, University of Khartoum, Sudan, Neglected Tropical Disease Control, Tanzania, Coordinating Office for Control of Trypanosomiasis, Uganda, University of Zimbabwe and University of Edinburgh (UoE). UoE is a world class university with strengths in, and a strategic commitment to, infectious diseases and global health, as well as strong links with Africa. TIBA is a unique initiative across Colleges, research centres and disciplines within UoE, with 8 named applicants representing over 200 PIs in our infectious diseases and global health communities (Edinburgh Infectious Diseases, Global Health Academy, Centre for Global Health Research). Within Edinburgh, TIBA combines research groups with impressive track records in delivering health improvements in Africa with major initiatives offering world class facilities and technical expertise (Edinburgh Genomics, Centre for Synthetic and Systems Biology, Innogen Institute). UoE has over £100M of active grants for infectious disease and global health research, linked to substantial infrastructure investment. These resources offer considerable added value to the work of TIBA and point to the long term sustainability of this initiative. Coupled with the tremendous strengths of our African partners, we believe we are uniquely placed to realise TIBA’s ambitions. TIBA’s aims will be delivered by collaborative and coordinated activities organised as six work packages (WPs): WP1 Rapid Impact projects; WP2 Making a Difference projects; WP3 Toolkit projects; WP4 Technology transfer and training; WP5 Dissemination for action; WP6 Responding to health emergencies. WP1 (Years 1-2) TIBA is supporting nine Rapid Impact (RI) projects, one proposed by each African partner. These are designed to capture the diverse challenges of health care systems in Africa and will both inform the development of our Making a Difference projects and provide data for our Toolkit projects. Each RI project will address a current knowledge gap which is resulting in either non-deployment of diagnostics or interventions or a lack of operational knowledge to improve the health of affected populations. The projects are: • Botswana - A situational analysis of schistosomiasis among communities in the Okavango Delta • Ghana - The effects of Artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) on the dynamics of Plasmodium falciparum, P. malariae and P. ovale infection in Ghana • Kenya - Validation of novel merozoite targets for new vaccines against Plasmodium falciparum malaria • Rwanda - Evaluate the impact of e-health in the management of severe malaria cases in Rwanda • South Africa - Preparing for an effective Mass Drug Administration Programme for South Africa: Elucidating burden, coverage, efficacy issues • Sudan - Preparation for Malaria elimination from Khartoum State: Improvement of the health system and detection of persistent transmission foci of Plasmodium species • Tanzania - Monitoring of Lymphatic filariasis in persistent hotspot transmission zones • Uganda - Stability of T. b. rhodesiense in domestic cattle in Eastern Central Uganda and implications for rHAT and AAT control • Zimbabwe - Adapting international criteria for the diagnosis of drug/immunization-related aut