Media statement

Launch of the ATM Clinical Trials Registry

Members of the media is invited to attend the launch of the ATM Registry as part of the African Contributors Meeting hosted by the SA Cochrane Centre and the Medical Research Council at the MRC Conference Centre in Parow Valley on Tuesday 22 May 2007.

The launch of the ATM Clinical Trials Registry forms part of the R4 billion European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) who has been in South Africa since 2004.  

Background to the ATM Clinical Trials Registry

ATM Clinical Trials Registry
HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria together kill over 6 million people each year, and the number of deaths and infections continue to increase. It is only through the collaboration of all parties involved in the fight against these diseases that new ways to control them will be identified.

With this in mind, the South African Cochrane Centre (SACC), in partnership with The European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) and the Cochrane Infectious Disease Group, has established an international registry for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria clinical trials (ATM Registry) conducted in sub-Saharan Africa. The ATM Registry has both prospective (registry of on-going trials) and retrospective (register or database of completed trials) components. Information on all prospectively registered trials contained in the ATM Registry will be made widely available in an open-access repository.

The ATM Registry will be an important global resource for researchers, clinicians, policy makers and the lay public by:

• Providing a source of reliable information on the efficacy and safety of prevention and treatment measures
• Identifying research gaps that should be addressed in future trials
• Providing a ‘laboratory’ for studying the scope, quality and funding patterns of trials and
• Keeping track of on-going trials.