East Africa Regional Stakeholder Workshop – Kenya

Identification of Personalised Medicine Needs and Cross Border Collaboration with Europe

13^thand 14^thJuly 2022. Windsor Golf Hotel and Country Club, Nairobi, Kenya

The two days East Africa Personalised Medicine Stakeholders workshop was organised by the National Commission for Science, Technology and Innovation NACOSTI (Kenya) on behalf of the EU-Africa PerMed Project, to discuss the PM agenda in East Africa and develop an action plan on how to pursue the agenda in the region. The workshop was attended by over seventy invited participants, who included key stakeholders from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Rwanda, EU-Africa PerMed project consortium members and members of the Project advisory board. During the opening, the participants were reminded of the key global health issues which included pandemics, environmental factors, economic disparities and access to health care, political factors, non-communicable diseases and animal health, and the need for use of the PM model as a way of effectively dealing with some of the challenges.

The objectives of the meeting were:

1. To review the landscape of PM in East Africa.
2. To identify and prioritise areas of interest in the region.
3. To identify gaps and needs for developing identified areas of interest.
4. To reflect on consortium models for developing PM in the region (governance, funding, partnerships, training program, etc.) and on national level.
5. To identify challenges and opportunities for collaboration within Africa and with Europe.

The results of the workshop were to feed into the project activities of carrying out the identification of PM needs in Africa, using a region-based approach.  The final expected outcome of the regional meetings together with the Stakeholder Workshops organised by EU-Africa PerMed is to define an Action Plan for EU-AU collaboration in PM. The workshop was to also serve as a platform to help participants to better understand the potential benefits of developing PM in the region and what are the key enablers that can facilitate this development, raise awareness about the opportunities for cross border collaboration and stimulate networking activities within East Africa stakeholders in the field of PM.

The workshop was attended by a total of 72 invited participants. These were selected from stakeholders identified from the project’s mapping report as well as other relevant stakeholders from the five countries in East Africa, and who were invited to participate in the workshop. These included stakeholders drawn from research and academic institutions, regulators of the Science, Technology and Innovation sector, policy makers, health care providers, NGOs, civil society, private sector, national scientific and bioethics committees, national drug authorities, members of the project advisory board, consortium members and the media.

The agenda of the workshop is available here (PDF)

An internal workshop report is available upon request. Please, contact project coordination team, Erika Sela: erika.sela[at]innovatec.es

WORKSHOP PRESENTATIONS

Wiew	Title
	Day 1 – 13th July 2022
	EU-Africa PerMed: East-Africa Regional Stakeholder Workshop / Prof. Walter Oyawa, Director General (NACOSTI).
	Dr. Jean-Luc Sanne Policy Officer, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission.
	EU-Africa PerMed project: General description / Ms. Erika Sela (Innovatec) & Ms. Teresia Nyawira (NACOSTI).
	Vision for Personalized Medicine in Africa: A need for a regional approach / Rizwana Mia (SAMRC).
	PM in East Africa: Findings from the EU-Africa PerMed scientific and policy mapping / Lynette Kamau (APHRC).
	Dr. Francis Makokha, Head, Human Health Research Program, Directorate of Research and Innovation, Mt. Kenya University, Kenya.
	Prof. Celestino Obua -Vice Chancellor, Mbarara University, Uganda.
	Overview status of Personalized Medicine in Tanzania / Dr. Agnes Jonathan (Sickle Cell Programme, Department of Haematology and Blood Transfusion, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, Tanzania).
	Dr Alemseged Abdissa, deputy director general of the Armauer Hansen Research Institute (AHRI), Ethiopia.