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TWENDE

The University of St Andrews is delighted to have been awarded 440,000 euro for TWENDE project by the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP). In Swahili, twende is a word used to encourage one another to move forward. Funded by EDCTP2 under the European Union H2020 framework, the 2-year project, 2015-17 aimed at understanding the barriers and identifying opportunities to unlock them in order to maximise uptake of research innovations into policy and practice.  The World Health Organisation (WHO) approved tuberculosis diagnostics, Xpert MTB/RIF and Line Probe Assay were used as a model to investigate implementational challenges and how to overcome them….

Tuberculosis is a chronic chest infection that kills nearly 2 million people worldwide every year. In a resource poor environment, diagnosis is difficult and it takes many months to get results back. New diagnostics are being developed but few have been implemented yet in the areas where people need them the most. By understanding the barriers, appropriate interventions can be made to overcome and smoothen the path for uptake and delivery of medical interventions where they are needed most. As result, TWENDE established and equipped four knowledge translation (KT) centres in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. Integrated at the heart of research institutions, the KT centres will continue the task of translating research findings and innovations for wider public use and as evidence for policy making locally and nationally.

Wilber Sabiiti Demonstrates Accurate Pipetting

Consortium Institutions

The TWENDE project was implemented by a consortium seven institutions:

Project objectives

Led by Dr Wilber Sabiiti (University of St Andrews) along with partners in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania and EAHRC the project aimed to achieve the following:

  1. Characterising the extent of the implementation of two WHO approved molecular diagnostics and exploring how to implement the rapid Molecular bacterial load assay (MBLA), a tuberculosis treatment response test developed by the University of St Andrews.
  2. Identifying the benefits of these methods to the health care system and gauge the attitude of health care staff and administrators to the funding of these tests.
  3. Identifying both local and international avenues to unlock the impediments to a wider uptake of effective TB diagnostics
  4. Seeking the policy makers views and recommendations for accelerating the uptake of research innovations
  5. Building capacity by offering expert advice on policy formulation as well as equipping and training knowledge transfer officers and regional user groups (clinicians and laboratory technologists) in order to sustain the translation of research output to the public domain.
  6. Completed in Dec 2017, the project found and documented important health system and socioeconomic cultural barriers that hinder uptake and delivery of medical interventions. The impact of the findings is not limited to tuberculosis but applicable to all diseases. Details of the finding are contained in a report to the funder and further publications will be shown on the page in the due course.

Some TWENDE outputs

  1. Beyond the numbers: interpreting the 2016 global tuberculosis report to inform policy and practice in the East African Community.
  2. Bridging policy and practice for effective control of tuberculosis in East Africa.
  3. Hosted the antimicrobial resistance (AMR) policy symposium at the East African Health and Scientific Research Conference, 30th March 2017 Bujumbura, Burundi. A report was made to the EAHRC to inform formulation of the East African Community AMR policy.  This symposium was the nucleus from which the project HATUA (Holistic Approach To Unravelling Antibacterial resistance in East Africa was conceptualised. HATUA has now been funded by the Medical Research Council UK to the tune of £2.8 million to investigate drivers of antibiotic resistance and advise of interventions. HATUA is Swahili word for Action.
  4. Established and equipped 4 knowledge translation centres, 2 in Tanzania at NIMR-Mbeya Medical Research Institute and Kilimanjaro Clinical Research Institute, 1 in Kenya at Kenya Medical Research Institute and 1 in Uganda at Makerere University. Over 25 early career researchers were trained and equipped with skills to translation research into policy and practice, and commercialisation of their inventions.
  5. Conducted over 6 policy dialogues with policy makers in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and wrote policy briefs that were submitted to responsible ministries and parliament.

The TWENDE Team

Wilber Sabiiti | Gibson Sammy Kibiki | Evans Amukoye | Owaraga | Nyanda Elias Ntinginya | Moses Joloba | Blandina Theophil Mmbaga | Alphonse Okwera | Stephen Gillespie | Ewan Chirnside

TWENDE is part of the EDCTP2 programme supported by the European Union

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