Workshops and meetings

1. Regional meeting for the development of Tuberculosis Clinical Research, 2-4 March 2009, Brazzaville, Congo (supported by FACTS, a French institution consortium)

Three main objectives:

• Addressing the key issues and activities that need to be conducted in the Republic of Congo, Cameroon and Gabon to provide additional capacity trough the development of human resources in the skills required to conduct future Tuberculosis clinical Phase I, II and III trials in compliance with ICH/GCP standards
• Audit the health system in place (hospital and laboratories working with Health Network for Tuberculosis and HIV) engaged in the fight against Tuberculosis
• Meet local ethical review boards in order to understand their interactions with institutions involved in Medical Research

Recommendations:

Developing sites need to collect baseline data through epidemiological and demographic surveys aiming at the establishment of a cohort. This includes information on:

• The prevalence of Tuberculosis in the population
• The institutions involved in the diagnosis and treatment of Tuberculosis
• Proportion of treatment failure
• Prevalence of resistant strains and type of resistance
• Follow up of patients and determination of the proportion of loss to follow-up in the cohort study

It is important:

• To recruit an Epidemiologist and Biostatistician for the design clinical studies on Tuberculosis.
• To establish basic diagnostic laboratories and train technicians and researchers able to conduct clinical trial on Tuberculosis under GCP/GLP guidelines. These sandwich training programs and participation in ongoing clinical trials in Africa (South Africa, Gambia and Gabon) will allow acquisition of competences trough learning by doing. 
• To carry out site assessment of TB sites.

Other types of baseline studies considered includes:

• Immune response studies
• Identification of MDR, XDR and other XXDR TB cases
• Follow-up of exposed and infected population

2. Molecular virology course, 1-2 June 2009, Yaoundé, Cameroon (supported by CIRCB and ISS, Italy)

The objectives:

The workshop will focus on research progress in DNA technology and in particular on HIV and emerging infections, in Africa.

This workshop will aim at improving the knowledge in technical aspects and in the application of these technologies in a clinical setting, with a particular focus on pediatric follow up of HIV infection.

3. Regional meeting for evaluation of HIV Clinical Research priorities for Congo and Cameroon, 10 August 2009, Brazzaville, Congo

Objectives:

• To discuss about the situation of research on HIV / AIDS in the Congo and Cameroon
• To make the point and know the current and future strategies of different local programs to coordinate the research activities of the project Health Network for Tuberculosis and HIV
• To establish the different types of cohorts

4. European Course on Tropical Epidemiology, 17 August- 4 September 2009, Götteborg, Sweden

Objectives:

1. To demonstrate knowledge about central epidemiological and statistical terms, as well as insight to qualitative methods.
2. To be able to descried epidemiological study designs such as cross-sectional, cohort, case-control, randomized controlled trials and ecological.
3. To have knowledge about surveillance and outbreak investigations.
4. To have understanding of the relation between epidemiology and social science and health economics.
5. To have basic epidemiological and statistical skills for the assessment of health problems, service delivery and planning of field studies.
6.  To demonstrate an ability to use the statistical softwares for data entry, data checking and analysis

6. SOP TB workshop, 6-8 December, Lambaréné, Gabon, in collaboration with DAAD and MIM Secretariat

Objectives:

1. Discuss standard operating procedures to implement in order to complete clinical trials and epidemiological studies provided in the pole Health Network for Tuberculosis and HIV TB (MDR-Health Network for Tuberculosis and HIV),
2. Assess the progress of TB activities -Health Network for Tuberculosis and HIV in Congo and Cameroon.

Recommendations:

• To standardize the same procedures and especially standardize fluorescence microscopy in all institutions Health Network for Tuberculosis and HIV.
  - The development of a protocol which have been described and suggestions to improve the protocol TB-Congo.

7. October 26th-30th Workshop for potential grantees, Nairobi-Kenya

Objectives: 
The workshop aimed in general to strengthen the skills of participants in the area of project organization and management, team building and increase their competiveness in accessing funding.  Specifically, that workshop aimed to allowed participants to:

1. consider and understand the value of planning in improving project implementation, monitoring and evaluation;
2. Acquire new skills necessary for project planning and evaluation;
3. Apply these skills to their research, starting with the project submitted to MIM/TDR Task Force

Objectives :

        *Leadership Session Objectives:

•  Handle the challenge of maintaining authority while building relationship effectively with members of your team.
•  Motivate individual initiative and personal responsibility with respect, following procedures and regulations.
• Provide performance feedback to team members that motivate them to want to improve.
• Mediate and resolve conflict within a project team
• Apply effective negotiation, listening and communication skills.

       *Project Management Session Objectives:

•       Lead a team through a collaborative planning process
•       Maintain team member accountability during project execution
•       Identify, mitigate and manage risk
•       Bring your projects in on time, within budget and to specification using a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
•       Identify the project critical path and use it to make informed decisions

Site visit prior to renovations

• Site visit in Brazzaville, Congo 3-4 March 2009
• Site visit in Yaoundé, Cameroon, 1-3 May 2009

Summary: These trainings, aimed in reinforcing capacities on biological safety in a culture laboratory, on the use of essential equipment for culture, on sample collection, registration and storage, media preparation, sample treatment in liquid and solid media, growth detection, strains identification, registration and results transmission, general biosafety conditions for P3 level TB laboratory. The trainings courses program were composed by theory and practical sections.  [Photos]

Project Management workshop for project managers and project coordinators in Dakar 26-27 June 2013