New central African network to boost TB research builds on west African experience

The newly-organized Central African Regional Network for TB control (CARN-TB) was welcomed at a meeting of TB programme managers, representing 27 countries, held in Cotonou, Benin, this spring.

“Yes we CARN!” was the enthusiastic cheer made by central African participants after their decision to take up the initiative.

TDR is working to train and support the national TB programme teams to enhance the conduct of TB research in close collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for Africa and Global TB Programme; the West African Health Organisation; The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the Union; the Damien Foundation; and, European and African universities and research institutions.

Replicating the model to address TB challenges

CARN-TB will replicate and build on the West African Regional Network for TB control’s (WARN-TB) model for a step-wise approach to strengthen TB control through country-led research in line with the global End-TB strategy. Lessons learned from the WARN-TB experience will be integrated into the new network. This includes:

• Helping countries to establish a national task force and national strategic plans for TB research;
• Implementation and operational research (IR/OR) training and increased collaboration among health partners and research institutions to conduct research; and,
• Support and technical assistance to countries on how to design and carry out research to investigate barriers and design new solutions for more effective TB detection, care and treatment – as well as how to translate research findings into policies that drive lasting change.

Some initial achievements of WARN-TB include:

• Improved data quality for TB surveillance in national programmes and stronger capabilities to analyse the information at national and sub-national levels. This provides more reliable information to guide national TB programmes to define disease control gaps and research priorities;
• New or revived national TB research task forces in network countries;
• National strategic plans for TB research in more than half of the countries after two years;
• Promising results from IR projects in Ghana and Senegal to improve TB case finding in children. Pilot studies have been conducted in Guinea and are now developing in Burkina Faso based on the first set of encouraging findings.

The CARN and WARN networks aim to address considerable TB challenges in their sub-regions:

• West and central African countries accounted for more than 1 million TB cases in 2016, or about 10% of the global TB burden.
• About 40% of TB patients are “missed” each year – these are people who are not diagnosed or, therefore, treated, including 100,000 children.
• 14% of people co-infected with HIV/TB die from TB each year.
• National TB programmes in the regions diagnose and treat only one-quarter of patients suffering from drug-resistant TB.

“These south-south collaborations, with strong global and regional support, are designed to intensify research to identify and implement cost-effective, locally generated solutions to end TB,” says TDR Director John Reeder.

“Their potential for impact is multiplied through the reach of these sister networks that will now engage in two sub-regions and 27 countries across Africa,” he says.

More about CARN-TB

Leadership of the new regional network is multilingual and multisectoral. Co-chairs were elected from a lusophone country (Angola), a francophone country (Cameroon) and the nongovernmental organization “Pont Santé Afrique”. WARN-TB will act as the secretariat of CARN-TB as the new network becomes established.

TDR, WHO and partners will bring together national TB programme staff and managers in June to help countries better understand their TB epidemics, analyse their available programmatic data and define national and sub-national TB research priorities.

Countries critical in the global fight against TB

At the global level, a series of high-profile moments to mobilize the fight against TB will culminate this fall with the UN General Assembly high-level meeting on TB. Bold and innovative solutions are fundamental to drive efforts to end this infectious disease killer, according to global leaders.

“We know that countries are essential partners in the global movement. At TDR, initiatives like WARN-TB and CARN-TB help to ensure that countries have the capacity and support to look within their own systems to find and test ways to overcome barriers to stronger TB control, and that makes a TB-free world possible,” says Reeder.

For more information, contact Corinne Merle.