Launch of a Project in Liberia to Strengthen Capacities for the Diagnosis of Infectious Diseases

This month saw the launch of IGORCADIA, a project that seeks to improve the registration of and research on infectious disease diagnostics in Liberia by strengthening capacities within he Liberian Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Authority (LMHRA).  The project, funded by the European Development Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), is led by ISGlobal, an institution supported by the “la Caixa” Foundation, in collaboration with the Saint Joseph’s Catholic Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, and the Juan Ciudad Foundation.

In Liberia, three of the four clinical assays started during the last Ebola outbreak ended prematurely. One of the main challenges in the country is to maintain the capacity to conduct future clinical trials for Ebola and other emerging infectious diseases. To do so, it is crucial to have accurate and reliable point-of-care diagnostic tests, particularly in settings with poor laboratory infrastructure.       

“We hope that IGORCADIA will contribute to strengthen health research capacities in a country badly hit by the Ebola crisis” says the project’s principal investigator, Alfredo Mayor.

The goal of the two-year project is triple, since it seeks to strengthen LMHRA capacities to i) regulate, register and license the importation, storage and use of existing diagnostics; ii) revise, design, implement, analyse and disseminate research on new diagnostics; iii) establish collaborations between agencies, authorities and local laboratories.”

“This project stems from SELeCT, another EDCTP-funded project that we conducted at the Saint Joseph’s Catholic Hospital, and is an excellent opportunity to continue what we started and establish a sustainable scientific collaboration with the institution” explains project manager Guillermo Martinez, from Monrovia.

With the support of:

This project is part of the EDCTP2 programme supported by the European Union