T-REC

Building research capacity of blood transfusion services in Africa

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The purpose of this project is to build sustainable capacity for research in blood transfusion services in Africa. There is a critical lack of individuals with research skills in Africa’s transfusion services; without these skills the service cannot do the research needed to improve the safety and supply of blood for their people. Blood transfusions in Africa are given predominantly for emergencies like bleeding during childbirth or severe anaemia due to malaria. In contracts, in wealthy countries demand for blood is predictable, transfusion services have centralised blood collection centres and effective distribution networks to hospitals where the blood is used. In Africa, the unpredictable blood use, severe blood shortages and difficulties in reaching remote hospitals means that research from wealthy countries may not apply to transfusion services in Africa. Therefore if African countries are to improve their blood transfusion services they need to generate their own evidence.

Africa’s transfusion professionals have a wealth of technical expertise but almost no research experience. Several European institutions have expertise in building research capacity among health professionals in Africa. This project will coordinate EU and African collaborations to transfer research skills to the African partners. EU partners will benefit by enhancing their own blood transfusion research skills. To do this we will support three research training schemes (PhD, under/post graduates, in-service) in each of two African partner transfusion services. All partners will contribute to disseminating information about the project to both academic and non-academic audiences, promoting the uptake of research into policy and practice and in seeking long-term support for building transfusion research capacity in Africa. The AfSBT will coordinate the African partners’ activities and LSTM will have overall responsibility for the project.'

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Blood banking in Africa faces challenges because of the lack of safe and stable blood donors, and a range of infectious diseases that make screening difficult in resource-poor settings. Evidence used to generate policy and practice in blood transfusion has almost exclusively been generated by Europe and North America and is often inappropriate for African contexts. It is therefore important for African researchers to generate research about blood transfusion and put the findings into policy and practice.

The EU-funded 'Building research capacity of blood transfusion services in Africa' (http://www.t-rec.eu (T-REC)) brings together African transfusion practitioners and managers who have in-depth knowledge of the needs and challenges of their transfusion services, with academics experienced in designing and conducting international quality research.

T-REC strengthened research capacity at individual, institutional and supra-national levels through supporting four PhD students from Zimbabwe and Ghana who were jointly supervised by researchers from their local university and a European university. Their projects cover donor motivation, rationalising syphilis screening, changing HIV patterns and economics of infection screening. In addition, each year up to nine staff each from the transfusion services in Ghana and Zimbabwe undertook a one-year, work-based part-time course which took them through the process of designing and carrying out their first transfusion research project. Supplementary research funds were provided to undergraduate and postgraduate students to undertake research on a blood transfusion related project.

Blood transfusion staff and students found the research capacity strengthening to be highly motivational professionally. They gained the ability to be constructively critical of existing practices and found ways to solve problems.

The effects of research capacity strengthening often take many years to be made clear. However, changes in national blood transfusion services are already taking place. For example, in Ghana, a Research Uptake Group has been formed as a result of T-REC. This group feeds into the National Research Steering Committee and the findings of research from the PhD students and DPDM students will be useful at this level. The blood service in Zimbabwe held a national consultation in February 2015 to decide how to use its research experience, including lessons from the T-REC collaboration, to improve the safety and availability of blood.

It is also hoped that T-REC activities will boost the number of individuals undertaking research in transfusion topics in the region.