The Global Health Clinical Trials Programme The goal of the Global Health Clinical Trials Programme is to promote and make easier the conduct of non-commercial clinical trials across all diseases in resource-poor settings. It is an integrated collaborative programme using a website as a platform.

There are many excellent initiatives that are providing clinical trial training and capacity development This are at trial level (RTS,S vaccine trial), a regional level (EDCTP, SEAICRN) or disease network (AMANET, numerous HIV groups, AERAS etc.) It is quite difficult to think of any trial steps, processes, methods or issues that are truly specific to that disease or location. Even specific lab assay’s most problematic steps are generic (tracking and transporting samples, for example) Much of these efforts focus on the same diseases and externally sponsored studies. However the same knowledge and skills could benefit other trials, yet there are limited opportunities for knowledge and skills transfer. Sites often only have the experience of working on externally sponsored trials yet aim to diversify and run locally managed programmes. Disease management and product development trials are both important and could mutually gain. Could be addressed by better sharing across disease areas and within locations

The Global Health Clinical Trials Research Programme Building on strength of many groups conducting trials in resource limited settings – sharing knowledge to encourage independent and diverse trials A web-based platform for disseminating what we have learnt and collaborating to solve problems Providing free guidance, tools, resources and templates Offering free e-learning and Continuing Professional Development Building a professional Network of all types of trial staff working in differing disease areas and locations Ethos similar to Cochrane - ALL ABOUT SHARING KNOWLEDGE AND INCREASING SKILLS

Participatory Action Research

Guidance articles are a core element. These provide explanatory notes alongside all the necessary tools such as templates and examples

A free and credible CPD scheme could improve careers, training and professional development for our trial staff

On-line short professional courses would improve skills as currently training is hard to access as involved travel to courses

The discussion area is already helping trial groups improve and guide their studies.

This discussion directly helped this user establish a high quality data management system for his trial

Location of users providing content

Job roles of members

metrics GlobalHealthTrials.org metrics January 2011 Members832 Visits8128 Number of different countries of origin of visits64 Number of different developing countries of origin of visits56 Member Conversion as % of new visits27% Page Views38354 Pages/visit7.48 Average time on site 7.04 min New visits %39% Returning Visits %61%

Reasons to establish Regional Faculties Bring the advantages of sharing knowledge and skills to a local level Provide face to face networking alongside online Encourage external sponsors running studies in our regions to increase their impact beyond ‘their’ studies Share knowledge between disease areas and locations We can do more and better research studies to improve global health

Our own Global Health Trials Regional Faculty Could… Provide a support platform to support more and better trials in our region Enable more people to access training and mentoring opportunities Allow for investment that overseas sponsors bring to a specific trial / disease to be disseminated more widely in our region Bring a local platform to help develop, guide and support partner research organisations – so better able to have sustainable capacity development Link local researchers across disease areas, job roles and research sites In particular we could…. Share resources and attend each others training, meetings and workshops Provide support and expert help face to face or online Technical support and locally applicable guidance and resources Access funding for collaborative projects

Division of Pharmacology, Department of Medicine, University of Cape Town European Developing Country Clinical Trials Alliance (EDCTP) The PRACTIHC Collaboration East African Consortium for Clinical Research (EDCTP funded) Africa Malaria Network Trust (AMANET) Malaria Consortium, Uganda Medical Research Council, Clinical Trial Unit International Vaccine Access Center, John Hopkins MRC, The Gambia Malawi-Liverpool WT Research Unit Swiss Tropical Institute The Malaria Centre, LSHTM Drug for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) Liverpool Centre for Tropical Medicine London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Imperial University Centre for Tropical Medicine Institute for Tropical Medicine, Antwerp Facultad de Salud Escuela de Salud Pública Maestría en epidemiología Colombia Centre for Paediatric Research, Lucknow, India Medical Research Unit of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital, Lamberene,Gabon. KEMRI-Wellcome Programme, Kenya World-Wide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN) Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, Bangkok, Thailand Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Nuffield Department of Medicine, Centre for Tropical Medicine. Sri Jayewardenepura Teaching Hospital Sri Lanka Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative, Duke University. USA KEMRI/Centre for Disease Control, Kisumu. Kenya. Clinical Trial Laboratories, Kintampo Ghana CSH Medical University Uttar Pradesh, India Consortium for National Health Research, Nairobi, Kenya Current list of collaborators Please get in touch at; Or visit at;