The SOuthern aFrica Research cApacity netwoRk (SOFAR) will train a generation of innovative world class and resilient African scientists, clinicians and public health professionals facilitated by a partnership of two higher education institutions (HEIs) in Europe and three African Partner Research Institutions (APRIs) with proven track records of research excellence. SOFAR will train 4 MSc, 6 PhD fellows in high quality and relevant infectious disease research combining taught content with practical experience, and support 5 post-doctoral researchers in conducting high quality infectious disease research on a pathway to establish themselves as independent researchers thus contributing to the generation of a critical mass of research capacity. Training will be delivered through fostering a mutually beneficial network that includes the SOFAR partners ministries of health and policy making organisations, with network meetings, pairing of fellows across institutions and placements of fellows within Africa CDC and WHO. This will facilitate direct transferability of relevant research to practice and policy. SOFAR will develop and deliver a modular digital and face to face training programme (Digital Global Health Academy) aimed at equipping fellows to maximize their research impact. This open access platform will foster a culture of open science, innovation, and knowledge circulation. SOFAR will strengthen processes and systems for recruitment ensuring both transparency and equity through the development of written guidance documents, training and intentional recruitment and review panels; in addition a tailored participatory programme to train academic supervisors at APRIs will be delivered. This will ensure that SOFAR not only trains skilled and internationally competitive researchers, but strengthens the systems and the environment of institutions, ensuring both impact and sustainability and contributing to reversing the brain drain.

Childhood tuberculosis (TB) remains globally underdiagnosed and untreated. In 2022, WHO conditionally recommended the use of treatment decision algorithms (TDAs) to improve the diagnosis of pulmonary TB in children <10 years and called for the external validation of two suggested TDAs for children. The Decide-TB project aims to generate evidence for the implementation of a comprehensive TDA-based approach for TB in children living in high-burden, resource-limited countries, at district hospital and primary health centre levels, and to facilitate the integration of this evidence into practice and policy. As an interdisciplinary consortium of researchers and national TB programs (NTPs), we will conduct a programmatic pilot of WHO-suggested TDAs, also integrating specific TDAs for children living with HIV and/or those malnourished, and severity assessment for shorter treatment decision in non-severe TB disease. Clinical mentoring tools and a Clinical Decision Support System will be developed. District information systems will be strengthened to collect individual data for program monitoring and supervision by NTPs, and for research. The TDA-based approach will be tested in a pragmatic stepped wedge cluster-randomized trial, including effectiveness, implementation, socio-behavioural, economics and policy research components. The diagnostic accuracy of TDAs will be assessed in a parallel meta-analysis of children with presumptive TB from recent studies led by consortium members. The pragmatic trial and meta-analysis will contribute to external validation of the WHO-suggested TDAs. Engagement of key stakeholders and decision-makers throughout the project will support adoption into international and national policies and into clinical practice. Through validation of TDAs, widespread policy adoption, and translation into clinical practice, Decide-TB will increase access to safe and effective TB management for children, thus reduce TB mortality and contribute to SDG3.

Many HIV vaccine concepts and several efficacy trials have been conducted in the prophylactic and therapeutic fields with limited success. There is an urgent need to develop better vaccines and tools predictive of immunogenicity and of correlates of protection at early stage of vaccine development to mitigate the risks of failure. To address these complex and challenging scientific issues, the European HIV Vaccine Alliance (EHVA) program will develop a Multidisciplinary Vaccine Platform (MVP) in the fields of prophylactic and therapeutic HIV vaccines. The Specific Objectives of the MVP are to build up: 1.Discovery Platform with the goal of generating novel vaccine candidates inducing potent neutralizing and non-neutralizing antibody responses and T-cell responses, 2. Immune Profiling Platform with the goal of ranking novel and existing (benchmark) vaccine candidates on the basis of the immune profile, 3. Data Management/Integration/Down-Selection Platform, with the goal of providing statistical tools for the analysis and interpretation of complex data and algorithms for the efficient selection of vaccines, and 4. Clinical Trials Platform with the goal of accelerating the clinical development of novel vaccines and the early prediction of vaccine failure. EHVA project has developed a global and innovative strategy which includes: a) the multidisciplinary expertise involving immunologists, virologists, structural biology experts, statisticians and computational scientists and clinicians; b) the most innovative technologies to profile immune response and virus reservoir; c) the access to large cohort studies bringing together top European clinical scientists/centres in the fields of prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines, d) the access to a panel of experimental HIV vaccines under clinical development that will be used as benchmark, and e) the liaison to a number of African leading scientists/programs which will foster the testing of future EHVA vaccines through EDCTP

Determining how climate and global change are driving the geographical variation of vector-borne diseases (VBDs) transmission dynamics is essential to measure current and future risks and to effectively roll out innovative surveillance and vector control strategies aiming at reducing the burden for the most vulnerable populations, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). IMPACTING aims to: 1) model the risk of VBDs spread under global change focusing on mosquitoes (malaria, dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever), tsetse (human African trypanosomiasis), blackflies (onchocerciasis) and ticks (Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever); 2) develop vector monitoring and pathogen diagnostic tools for improved surveillance; 3) develop robust pipelines to identify transmission blocking micro-organisms within vectors and define innovative VBD control strategies; 4) engage local rural and urban communities to co-develop solutions for VBD monitoring and control, bypassing current community level barriers; 5) develop a multi-VBD risk prediction dashboard to facilitate evidence-based policy making focused on innovative control strategies resilient to climate change. IMPACTING is built on a consortium of eight research institutes, three universities and one SME - based in Kenya, Cameroon, Mozambique, France and Portugal. It gathers expertise in social sciences, entomology, ecology, epidemiology, genomics, bioinformatics, modelling and software development, fostering an interdisciplinary approach. IMPACTING draws on extensive experience in other EU projects and strong fruitful collaborations to fill the gap in knowledge and innovation for VBDs and vector control in SSA and globally. IMPACTING aligns with the Africa CDC Strategic Plan 2023-27 and EU global health strategy. It focuses on improving health security through African leadership in research and innovation, combining digital and biological sciences, capacity building, and engagement with African communities and public health actors.