30 Jun Four EU-supported research grants worth millions awarded to AIGHD

Posted at 15:33h in All News by

Malnourished children suffering from diarrhoea and people at risk of recurrent tuberculosis (TB) will benefit from multimillion-euro research projects that AIGHD coordinates.

Four research projects proposed by AIGHD were funded in the latest annual round of the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), which is supported by the European Union. The largest one, focusing on malnourished children suffering from diarrhoea, starts today.

Targeting antibiotics to prevent hospitalisation, death

Dubbed TARGET and granted €5.8 million, this clinical trial will be led by Dr Vanessa Harris, together with Dr Richard Omore from the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI).

Diarrhoea remains one of the leading causes of death for children under 5 years of age.

“We know that children with malnutrition are extra vulnerable to infections and more often have bacterial causes of diarrhoea,” said Harris. “Currently, World Health Organization guidelines do not recommend antibiotics for children with acute watery diarrhoea.

“In our trial, we want to test if antibiotic treatment for children who have both watery diarrhoea and malnutrition could reduce the number of hospitalisations and deaths.”

Between a fifth and nearly half of children presenting with diarrhoea at TARGET’s study sites in Kenya and Tanzania are wasted or stunted. The study will help identify groups of children who may benefit from antibiotic therapy, weighing this against the risk of antimicrobial resistance.

To solidify the use case for data generated from the clinical trial, the TARGET team also includes climate scientists from the Tanzania Meteorological Authority. The project will conduct microclimate monitoring, enabling the consortium to assess the benefits of antibiotic therapy across geographies and in the context of potential climate change impacts.

Avoiding 100,000 TB recurrences

The tuberculosis project (called RECENT-TB, a €2.4 million grant) will see a trial of preventive antibiotics be implemented for people who have just completed TB treatment in specific high-burden neighbourhoods in Uganda and in South Africa.

“If someone has had one episode of TB, they are more at risk of getting a second,” explained principal investigator Dr Sabine Hermans. “My hope is to identify a clear subset of people who could benefit from preventive therapy in a manner that is cost-effective, acceptable, and easy to implement.”

Although this high-risk population represents up to 30% of the global TB burden, they are currently excluded from any guidelines.

The RECENT-TB project represents a partnership with the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) at Makerere University in Uganda and the Clinical Mycobacteriology and Epidemiology (CLIME) group​​​ at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Starting in September, it will be a hybrid implementation trial, meaning the clinical trial will be combined with research on the implementation of the intervention to help guide future policy and practice.

RECENT-TB will also develop a risk score and perform cost-effectiveness analysis, which will enable targeting of the preventive therapy to those who will benefit the most. Should RECENT-TB succeed in its aim to halve the rate of TB recurrence in sub-Saharan Africa, it could prevent up to 100,000 recurrences per year.

Projects to run until 2030

Both TARGET and RECENT-TB will run until 2030, offering several African candidates the opportunity to complete PhD and post-doctoral research projects.

The two other projects AIGHD will contribute to are focused on training and mentorship in sub-Saharan Africa:

Eastern Africa Consortium for Clinical Research IV. The fourth iteration of the EACCR project consists of 22 partners, including AIGHD. It aims to build capacity for research on epidemics and outbreaks common to East Africa.

Infectious Disease Modelling. Led by the IDI in Uganda, the IDM-Africa project will establish a training hub to help reduce the critical shortage of modellers in sub-Saharan Africa.

AIGHD has been a key recipient of EDCTP funding since its inception in 2009, completing several high-impact research projects.

Key facts

  • Up to 200,000 of the people (10% of cases) successfully treated for TB in sub-Saharan Africa each year develop TB again within two years, according to estimates;
  • In sub-Saharan Africa, between 8.5 and 15.9 million cases of severe diarrhoea occur annually in children younger than five.