Sign and share our manifesto!

Financing Research

The funding of medical research in Africa has 4 important limitations:

• It is weak
• It comes almost exclusively from developed countries
• 90% of funding is devoted to infectious diseases such as AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria
• The research topics are chosen by the countries that provide the funding rather than the African countries themselves

Approaching infectious diseases exclusively does not portray reality

This vision of Africa is widely spread throughout developed countries:

• It is outdated because the epidemiological transition has already shifted towards NCDs, making it the leading cause of morbidity and mortality
• It is humiliating for African doctors and decision-makers who do not want to be confined to yesterday's infectious diseases when they are actually seeing
• a sharp increase in hypertension, strokes, heart attacks, kidney insufficiencies, and cancer
• Encouraging the limited number of doctors and resources to conduct research where there are means, meaning yesterday's diseases rather than the diseases of today and tomorrow, has detrimental effects  

Perspectives and Solutions

It is time to act toward enabling African doctors and decision-makers to:

• Choose the diseases on which they wish to work
• Create and carry out the research studies and tests of their choice
• Analyze, publish, and actually benefit from the results themselves

This awareness must be shared among us all and will be officially presented during the Dakar Declaration on May 22, 2023, the international day of Non-Communicable Diseases. This event will be organized with the Senegalese head of government, the Senegalese Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, and the Senegalese Ministry of Health and Medical Prevention, together with the World Health Organization and the deans, Ministries of Higher Education, the Ministries of Health, rectors, and scientists from the 20 sub-Saharan African countries of our network.

‍

During the Dakar Declaration, a project to create an African Research Institute will be launched, which will be based in the main universities of the Sub-Saharan African region. The head of the main international research institutes (Europe, USA, China, Japan, India, etc.) as well as the scientific journalists of main publications will also be invited.

‍

Steering: African Research Network

The African Research Network (ARN) is a network across 20 sub-Saharan African countries involving medical centers and universities that are already carrying out research studies on non-communicable diseases on the continent. Our work has been published at the highest international level and provides significant data on Rheumatic Heart disease, Sickle Cell disease, Epidemiological transition, Quality of cardiovascular and anti-diabetic drugs, Severe Hypertension, or Acute Rheumatic Arthritis.

‍