Project Summary/Abstract
According to UNAIDS, 25.7 million (70.8%) of the 36.3 million people who lived with HIV
(PLWHIV) in 2017 were living in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The International epidemiology
Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA, see www.iedea.org) is an international research
consortium, which was established in 2006 by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases (NIAID) to collect and define key variables, harmonize data, and implement
methodology to address high priority research questions. The four African regions of IeDEA
(Central, East, Southern and West Africa) follow over 1,000,000 patients, including infants,
children, adolescents and adults, and represent the largest network of HIV care and treatment
facilities in sub-Saharan Africa. The African regions of IeDEA convened ‘All-Africa’ meetings in
2013 in Kampala, Uganda and 2017 in Kigali, Rwanda to discuss priorities for multi-regional
research. Here we propose the third 'All-Africa' meeting of the IeDEA network, which will bring
together approximately 100 investigators, including local PhD students and post-docs, from the
23 sub-Saharan African countries participating in IeDEA, the US, France, and Switzerland to
share knowledge and methods, review research priorities on Treat All and NCDs, and develop
multiregional research collaborations. The meeting will build on the two previous meetings with
the following three aims:
(i) to follow-up on the 'treat all' research priorities developed at the 2017 All Africa meeting of
IeDEA, including discussion of methodological approaches and the need for enhanced data
collection;
(ii) to develop an agenda for multiregional research on NCDs and other co-morbidities, to
discuss methodological challenges and identify needs for enhanced data collection, and
(iii) to bring together local PhD students and early-career investigators in targeted workshops on
data analysis, grant writing, manuscript writing; and to discuss how capacity building within
IeDEA can be strengthened.
The meeting will include workshops for junior researchers, plenary presentations, panel
discussions and carousel small group discussions around clearly defined themes. The approach
is designed to maximize sharing information and networking between individuals from different
African IeDEA regions. The anticipated outcomes include the identification of focused
multiregional research projects based on the priorities defined for ‘Treat All’ implementation
research, NCDs and co-morbidities, with enhanced data collection in selected sites if required.
