The MRC in Africa
The MRC is positioning itself as the leading science council in Africa through its involvement in many projects on the continent. The first project that springs to mind is the European Union Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership, of which the MRC hosts the African Office (the other office of the secretariat is in The Hague, Netherlands).

This project, worth nearly three billion rand, aims to accelerate the development of new clinical interventions to fight HIV/ AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. It also aims to bring European programmes and African partners together in order to evaluate these interventions.

But apart from this project, well in excess of a further R200 million has been leveraged or brokered by the MRC over the past five years for science-and technology-based cooperative projects in Africa.

Malaria in Africa
The MRC's Malaria Research Lead Programme is the main investigating centre for the " Mapping Malaria Risk in Africa" collaboration, also known as the MARA/ ARMA project. It was initiated to provide detailed mapping of malaria risk and endemicity - something that has never been done in Africa.

The team has been hugely successful. There is currently hardly any major document on malaria in Africa that doesn't make use of MARA/ ARMA maps or the burden of disease figures produced by the team.

The MARA/ ARMA team is also at the cutting edge of geographical modeling science using eco-physiological, climate and geographical information systems (GIS) methods.

The team has also been hard at work to build capacity in the field with many successful training efforts taking place.

Another project where the Malaria Research Lead Programme is doing groundbreaking work is their involvement in the malaria control component of the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative (LSDI). This is a three-country collaboration between Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa (read more about this project on page 24).

The lead programme has helped to train two PhD students from other African countries. Mr John Chimumba (the head of malaria control in Zambia) and Mr Kamwe (deputy minister of health, Namibia) both studied for their doctoral degrees under the guidance of scientists of the lead programme.

Dr Brian Sharp, who heads the Malaria Research Lead Programme, was recently the principal investigator of a seven-country southern African insecticide resistance study. Besides South Africa, this project included Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Swaziland and Botswana.

Disease and mortality
Leading African researchers, many of them from the MRC, are involved in the writing of the second edition of Disease and Mortality in sub-Saharan Africa, a book being sponsored by the World Bank.

Most chapters will cover issues such as disease etiology, risk factors, incidence, prevalence, mortality and strategies for control. Although this project is not a formal network, it constitutes a very useful informal link between leading researchers on the African continent.

Africa-wide projects
The MRC is a founder member of the African AIDS Vaccine Programme (AAVP).

Launched in mid-2002, this programme plans to raise funds for an African vaccine against the disease.

The AAVP is organised into five thematic working groups, where African scientists work together to strengthen priority areas. There is a biomedical sciences work group (led by Dr Souleymane Mboup of Senegal), an ethics, law and human rights group (led by Dr Malegapuru Makgoba, former president of the MRC), a strategic planning group (led by Dr Rosemary Musonda from Zambia), an advocacy resource mobilization group (led by Dr Malaki Owili from Kenya) and a population-based studies thematic group (led by Prof Fred Mhalu of Tanzania).

Another all-Africa project is the Drugs for Neglected Diseases (DNDi) initiative. It is a non-profit, needs-driven entity that aims to provide relief for patients who suffer from diseases (such as leishmaniasis, sleeping sickness, Chagas' diseases, Buruli ulcer, and kalaazar). It also aims to provide patients with equitable access to new, affordable, efficient and field-relevant health tools.

The MRC also pioneered the Africa Fellowship, which is designed to foster collaboration between scientists in Africa. It enables scientists from other countries to spend a year in South Africa.

Thus far, Drs John Akudugu from Ghana and Benjamin Olley from Nigeria have been able to further their studies in South African laboratories. Dr Akudugu spent his year in the laboratory of Prof Lothar Böhm at the University of Stellenbosch's Department of Radiation Oncology. He worked on a project involving predictive assays in cancer management and radiation accidents. Dr Akudugu, who is now based in Canada, is still collaborating with Prof Böhm.

Dr Olley, who was hosted by Prof Dan Stein of the MRC's Anxiety and Stress Disorders Research Unit, researched stress and psychopathology in newly-diagnosed HIV/ AIDS patients.

The MRC has just awarded three new fellowships. Dr James Brandful from Ghana will be studying HIV-1 and HIV-2 strains circulating in Ghana with Dr Maria Papathanasopoulos of the National Institute of Communicable Diseases.

Dr Jason Mwenda of Kenya will assess the immunogenicity of an HIV-1C DNA vaccine in baboons in the Department of Medical Virology, University of Stellenbosch. Finally, Dr Charles Shey Wiysonge from Cameroon will investigate the need for a large, multi-centre trial to assess the effectiveness of adjuvant steroids in tuberculous heart disease.

MRC President, Prof William Pick, is very upbeat about the MRC's involvement in Africa. "It is gratifying to know that our involvement with health researchers in Africa is not only continuing, but also increasing. The figures attest to our ongoing efforts to collaborate with scientists in Africa, something which the MRC will continue to encourage. Collaboration with researchers in Africa not only provides us with a platform through which to address the challenging research questions posed by the health problems of our continent, but also has the potential to reduce the migration of scientists from to wealthier continents. At the institutional level, efforts are being made to strengthen our relationships with sister research councils on the continent as well as the network of African research organisations, and it is hoped that this continued collaboration will contribute to the vision of NEPAD."