This meeting was held from August 2 to 4, 2022 at the African Union in Addis Ababa. It brought together scientists and NMCP managers and offered a unique opportunity to initiate discussion on how to bridge the gap between research and policy-making for malaria elimination. The meeting was widely attended by scientists and NMCP managers. It was attended by around 30 people from the network’s 16 member countries.
A review of tools and initial engagement activities with NADP IPs was carried out. The PDNA IPs gave very good feedback on the GEME study tools. Many IPs responded to the team, providing additional information on the tools and on ongoing experiences in their countries.
The questionnaire designed to assess the knowledge and needs of NDPs in terms of genetic tools was drawn up and validated.
Ethical approval for the project was granted, and the team prepared for project data collection by conducting 17 in-depth interviews in the 16 countries with NDP IPs. The qualitative study aimed to explore researchers’ experiences of involving NMCPs and how they make their research accessible to NMCPs. Interviews were recorded and transcribed. All recorded interviews were processed verbatim to produce transcripts to be used for coding and analysis.
Work was carried out by the Ghana team to develop the manuscript and protocol with comments and contributions from all PDNA IPs, who are co-authors.
The needs assessment for most countries was carried out from January onwards, although around two countries completed their surveys in December 2022. French-speaking countries were coordinated by the Mali team’s CPE, while the Ghana team led the English- and Portuguese-speaking countries.