Two new programmes financed by NACCAP

9 July 2007

Last week, the WOTRO programme NACCAP signed two contracts with EDCTP for the joint funding of two new research programmes in Africa.

The first programme (€ 1 million) will strengthen research capacity in Western Kenya to allow tuberculosis vaccine trials in adolescents and neonates. Tuberculosis vaccines are expected to be available for testing within a few years. But in western Kenya, where HIV prevalence and TB load is the highest, there is hardly any capacity for setting up cohorts to conduct phase II and III trials.
The Kenyan research institute performing the studies and the Dutch Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam are supported by an experienced South African research institute and the Dutch KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation. Financial support is also provided by AERAS. The programme will receive € 1 million from NACCAP, all of which is to be spent on African citizens or African research infrastructure.

The second programme to be funded by NACCAP (€ 412,000), together with EDCTP, focuses on a clinical trial testing an innovative treatment strategy for the prevention of the transmission of HIV from mothers to their newborn children. In Africa pregnant, HIV-infected women and their newborn children are currently treated with a single dose of Nevirapine (NVP) which prevents the transmission of HIV, but unfortunately can induce resistant viruses. The strategy to be tested in this clinical trial includes the addition of an enzyme to the single dose of Nevirapine (NVP). In this way, the half-life time of NVP will be reduced and  hopefully, there will be less induction of resistance without a change in the preventive efficacy. If successful, the new treatment will be inexpensive and simple to take, a prerequisite for treatment strategies in African settings where health services are scarce.