10.15 million Euros to fight against Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in the CEMAC zone

After the announcement made by the Personal Representative Africa of the German Chancellor during her working visit on April 18, 2015 in Yaoundé, the implementation of the NTD program is becoming a reality. This is what emerged from the working session that had just been held from July 4 to 13, 2016 in Yaoundé, between experts from OCEAC and those from the German Development Bank (KfW).

For eleven days, experts from OCEAC and the German Development Bank worked on the preparations for the effective start of the said sub-regional project, which will aim not only to contribute to increasing the capacities of national control programs, but also to increase research capacities in the CEMAC zone.

Project having a duration of 4 years, the implementation of this sub-regional project will take place in two parts, namely:

• support for national NTD control programs based on projects proposed by the Ministries in charge of health;
• support for young researchers in the field of NTDs whose research subject is likely to contribute to the fight against these diseases.

In this case, this second part concerns the disciplines of medicine, biology, pharmacy and sociology. Here, the beneficiaries must be doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers not over 35 years old from CEMAC member countries.

However, operational research subjects will be encouraged and preferred to fundamental research.

At the end of the work, the aide-memoire documents resulting from this consultation were initialed on the one hand by Jan Frölish, Principal Project Manager of KfW and on the other hand by Dr Constat Roger AYENENGOYE, Executive Secretary of the OCEAC, July 12, 2016 at the headquarters of the Organization.