Combining health and social protection measures to reach the ultra ...

Research resourcestreatment is provided to hundreds of thousands of childrenannually in Kenya and, almost certainly, to millions ofchildren throughout Africa. Major gains in child survival canonly be made if improved preventive and primary care arecombined with the right treatment at the right time for thosethat present with severe disease. In Kenya, the majority of thefirst-line resources needed to support care of the severely illchild are available. The challenge then is to determine howthe care provided can be optimized to suit the context, in linewith the best available evidence. Research addressing thisissue has very rarely been attempted in rigorously designedstudies in developing country settings and never as part of anintegrated approach to inpatient paediatric care.The aim of Dr English’s current research project is primarilyto conduct a public health efficacy study of an intervention toimprove care for children in hospitals in Kenya. Theintervention, based on the referral care component of theIntegrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) strategy,with Kenya’s Ministry of Health comprises training,guidelines, job aides, supervision and quality improvementactivities delivered over 18 months to a number of hospitalsin the country. Results will critically inform the debate onscaling-up and improving new integrated health systems inKenya.Example 3International Partnerships for Capacity Development✜ International Collaborative Research Grants schemeThis £12 million initiative is a partnership between theWellcome Trust, the National Health & Medical ResearchCouncil of Australia and the Health Research Council of NewZealand and is designed to foster collaborations between theresearchers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) inSouth and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands with theinvestigators based in Australia and New Zealand. Elevenresearch programmes were awarded which focus on majorhealth issues of the LMICs of the region and develop researchcapacity in the region.✜ Wellcome Trust – Burroughs Wellcome InfectiousDisease InitiativeThis £18 million partnership initiative supported 13trilateral international collaborations between the UK, USA orCanada and LMICs anywhere in the world. The aim of thepartnership initiative was to advance understanding ofinfectious diseases which affect developing countries and toincrease research capacity in the LMICs through training andtechnology transfer.✜ The Health Research Capacity Strengthening (HRCS)initiativeThe HRCS initiative is a partnership between the WellcomeTrust and the UK’s Department for International Development(DFID) who agreed to commit £10 million each towards ajoint programme of health research capacity strengthening inAfrica as part of the UK Government 2004 Spending Review.The International Development Research Centre (IDRC),Canada has joined the initiative, both as an implementingpartner with experience in health research programmes inEast Africa, and as a co-funder. The partnership aims tostrengthen the capacity for the generation of new healthresearch knowledge within Kenya and Malawi, and improveits use in evidence-based decision-making, policy formulationand implementation.Gunvanti Goding is a science programme officer at the WellcomeTrust in the Populations and Public Health Section, which managesresearch grants, fellowships and partnership programmes based inthe UK and the low- and middle-income countries of the world.She obtained a doctorate from her research on gene regulation atCancer Research, UK and has carried out a number of researchprojects in virology and molecular biology.Michael Chew is a science programme officer at the WellcomeTrust and works for the Tropical and Clinical Immunology andInfectious Disease Section, which manages many of the researchgrants based in low- and middle-income countries. Before joiningthe Trust, he undertook research for a PhD in parasitology atImperial College London, and worked as a scientist at the Instituteof Child Health, London, and Imperial College for 16 years.Jimmy Whitworth is head of International Activates at theWellcome Trust, where he oversees strategy and policy for researchin developing and restructuring countries of the world, includingfellowships, project and programme grants, networks andpartnerships. Previously he was Professor of International PublicHealth at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine,and has spent most of the past 25 years working on medicalresearch topics in Africa.Global Forum Update on Research for Health Volume 4 ✜ 139