Meet the grantees of the Special COVID-19 Research Challenges
We are pleased to announce two grantees of the Special Covid-19 call, which supports research projects that address the negative impact of infectious diseases on the African continent. One project assesses the impact of iron deficiency anemia on vaccine efficacy in Kenya and the other project studies how to optimise the logistics preparedness for disease outbreaks in Uganda.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in April 2020, ETH4D issued a special call for proposals addressing projects that help to prevent the spread of infectious diseases in African countries or to mitigate their negative impact on people’s health or livelihoods.
The applications closed on 17 May 2020, and the research committee evaluated the quality, feasibility, relevance, applicability as well as the team qualifications and diversity of these projects. Based on these criteria, the following projects were selected for funding:
Iron and vaccine-preventable viral disease
The project responds to the challenge of vaccine underperformance in low- and middle-income countries. The experimental study with 112 participants aims to assess whether iron deficiency anemia in Kenyan women impairs their immune response to viral vaccines and whether iron treatment improves their response. Participants will be randomly assigned to a treatment (immediate iron-treatment) and control (delayed iron-treatment) group to measure differences in vaccine response to three anti-viral vaccines (influenza, yellow fever, and measles-rubella).
ETH4D Principal Investigator: Dr. Nicole Stoffel Department of Health Sciences and Technology
Focus country: Kenya
Project partners: external pageSchool of Public Health, Jomo Kenyatta University; Msambweni District Hospital
Logistics Preparedness for Disease Outbreaks in Uganda
The project addresses the challenge of effective emergency healthcare supply-chains that respond to infectious disease outbreaks in low-income countries. At the invitation of the Ugandan Ministry of Health, the project team examines the question of how to set up and operate supply chain networks to respond effectively to future disease outbreaks. The research applies the design science methodology and draws on scientific network optimization, based on historical patterns of disease outbreak, to compute which locations and levels of stock maximize responsiveness.
ETH4D Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner, Department of Management, Technology, and Economics
Focus country: Uganda
Project partners: external pageMinistry of Health, Uganda
The regular call for the ETH4D Research Challenges is currently open. The deadline for applications is 30 September 2020. Check out the ETH4D Research Challenges website for more details.