The Platform for Dialogue and Action on Health Technologies in Africa (Health Tech Platform) is a three-year project that  ​​covers Sub-Saharan Africa. Implemented by the African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP), the project aims to create an African-led advocacy platform to facilitate informed, objective, transparent, inclusive, open and balanced discussions on the development and use of transformative tools and technologies to address key health challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Health Tech Platform engages stakeholders at global, regional and national levels. At the national level, it is being implemented in Burkina Faso and Uganda. In Burkina Faso, the implementation is led by the Nouna Health Research Center (CRSN), with the Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA) leading the implementation in Uganda.

While awaiting the official launch of the project in Burkina Faso, scheduled for June, the CRSN embarked on a series of consultations with stakeholders, in a collaborative effort to achieve the objectives of the project. On 17^th January 2022, the CRSN held a working session with the Director General of the National Institute of Public Health (INSP), Dr Hervé Hien. The INSP plays a major role in the achievement of health objectives and will be a fundamental pillar in the realisation of the objectives of the Health Tech Platform.

The objective of the meeting was to introduce the project and its activities in Burkina Faso to the Director General of the INSP. In his introductory remarks, the Director of the CRSN, Dr Ali Sié, touched on the challenges envisaged in the implementation of the project and the conditions under which the CRSN was selected to lead the first phase of the implementation. He indicated that the CRSN was selected based on its work in Burkina Faso which ties into the mandate of the Health Tech Platform.  

Presenting the Health Tech Platform, Dr Charlemagne Tapsoba, Project Officer, explained that the overall objective of the project is to ensure that Africans are meaningfully involved in leading discussions on the need for transformative tools and technologies, their designs, their developments, their testing and adoption by governments, other development actors and communities, including the youth and women. This, he said, will ultimately result in increased use of evidence on health technologies and tools by decision-makers and other stakeholders at national and regional levels in Africa.

Dr Tapsoba said that the Health Tech Platform mobilises champions (such as African scientists, media professionals, development experts, etc.) to promote the development and use of transformative technologies to address health challenges in Africa. The Platform also builds the capacity of African institutions to enable them to carry out sensitisation activities to create awareness on the development and use of technologies and tools to address health challenges on the African continent.

Dr Tapsoba further indicated that the African Union’s development road map, Agenda 2063, recognises the critical role of technology as a catalyst for growth on the continent. This notwithstanding, he said, if emerging technologies such as gene drives for control and elimination of Malaria, mRNA and RNAi vaccines, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, drones, data analytics, among others, do not get a chance to be well designed and developed with meaningful inputs from Africans and piloted or deployed full-scale where proven safe and efficacious, then their potential for changing the disease trajectory on the continent will remain untapped.

Dr Hervé Hien, for his part, lauded the idea of the Platform, indicating it was a very good initiative by AFIDEP and that CRSN leading the efforts in Burkina Faso was in the right direction. He said the initiative was timely and pledged his organisation’s availability and support for any planned activities for its implementation. He suggested that the project be captured and prioritised on the agenda of the Cabinet Meeting of the Ministry of Health. Dr Hien further suggested that effective working relationships and partnerships be established with the media to promote effective dissemination of health research results.

The CRSN rolled out the planned activities for discussion, which marked the beginning of collaboration between the two organisations.

This article was originally posted in French on CRSN website.

From 14^th to 15^th April, 2022, the Nouna Health Research Center (CRSN), Health Tech Platform’s partner in Burkina Faso, in collaboration with the Institute for Research in Health Sciences (IRSS), organised an information workshop for journalists in Bobo-Dioulasso. The broad objective was to enhance journalists’ understanding of emerging health technologies, with a focus on gene drive mosquito technology.

The two-day workshop was part of implementation activities of the Platform for Dialogue and Action on Health Technologies in Africa (Health Tech Platform), implemented by the African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP) in Sub Saharan Africa with a particular focus on Burkina Faso and Uganda.  Dr Ali Sié, Director of CRSN and leader of the implementation team in Burkina Faso, explains the objectives of the Health Tech Platform.

“Promoting informed, objective, open and balanced discussions on the development and use of emerging transformative tools and technologies to address health challenges in Africa is the objective of the Health Tech Platform.” He added that the approach to achieving this objective is to involve several stakeholders, including the media, in the project implementation. Dr Sié said the meeting with media professionals was therefore to interact with them so they could better inform the public about the project.

The workshop was also an avenue to explain the vision, mission and objectives of the Health Tech Platform as well as discuss issues on biosafety regulations with media professionals from Bobo-Dioulasso, Ouagadougou, Dédougou, Ouahigouya, Banfora and Koudougou. The Health Tech Platform envisions an Africa where cutting-edge technology is used to tackle health challenges. Its mission is to promote evidence-informed dialogue and action on health technologies in Africa.

Dr Charlemagne Tapsoba, Project Officer, explains the role the African Union has played and continues to play in promoting the development and use of transformative and emerging technologies.

“The African Union’s development road map, Agenda 2063, recognises the critical role of technology as a catalyst for growth on the continent. However, if emerging technologies do not get a chance to be well designed and developed with meaningful inputs from Africans and piloted or deployed full-scale where proven safe and efficacious, then their potential for changing the disease trajectory on the continent will remain untapped.”

Health Tech partnering with Target Malaria

The Health Tech Platform is working in partnership with Target Malaria in the fight against malaria in Africa. The work of both organisations was explained at the workshop to give participants a full understanding of the kind of partnerships that exists between the two.

With the objective to eradicate malaria in Africa, Target Malaria is a non-profit research consortium that aims to develop and share new, sustainable and genetic technologies aimed at genetically modifying mosquitoes to reduce the transmission of malaria that is severely rife in Burkina Faso. Explaining how endemic malaria is in Africa and specifically in Burkina Faso, Dr Abdoulaye Diabaté, Principal Investigator of Target Malaria said:  “Today, Burkina Faso is one of the five countries most affected by malaria in the world.”

He attributed this to the fact that conventional vector control tools, namely treated mosquito nets, insecticides and indoor spraying have reached their fundamental protective limit. “In line with its mandate, Target Malaria has completed the first phase of its project embarked on,  with the release of 10,000 mosquitoes in several villages,” he added.

The workshop provided the opportunity for journalists to learn more about Target Malaria and its activities, as well as helped to identify their needs in terms of knowledge gaps and evidence on emerging health technologies.

On their part, the journalists expressed satisfaction with the workshop and pledged their commitments to publishing stories that would inform the public on emerging health technologies. The activities were rounded up with a visit to Bana, a village in South-West of Burkina Faso, where participants gained some practical knowledge on the release of genetically modified mosquitoes that took place in 2019.

This article was originally posted in French on ouest-info.net.