THE LIBERIAN INSTITUTE FOR BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH – DIVISION OF PHMR/NPHIL
REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA
PRE-EVD CHALLENGES
BASIC HEALTH INDICATORS OF HEALTH SERVICES Health Workforce per 10 000 population Liberia African Region Average Global Average Physicians 0.3 2.6 14.1 Physician Assistants (PAs) 0.8 n/a n/a Nursing & Midwifery Personnel 5.2 12.0 29.2 Dentistry Personnel 0.07 0.5 2.7 Pharmaceutical Personnel 0.1 0.9 4.3 Hospital Beds 8 9 27 Density Rural Hospital per 10,000 pop 0.04 n/a n/a
Sub-Regional Pre-EVD Challenges…. Lack of basic infrastructure to conduct high quality research Limited experience in basic and/or clinical research Inadequate laboratory facilities and Repository for samples Structural challenges to ethical and/or regulatory processes Environmental & people unpreparedness for clinical trials Significant distrust in the health and/or political systems Partners research agenda unaligned to country’s needs
ROLE PLAYED BY LIBR DURING THE EVD OUTBREAK
EMERGENCY RESPONSE LIBR demonstrated that it was a key public health asset, as evidenced by the EVD response Upon hearing about EBOLA in Guinea, LIBR quickly mobilized few of its staff and travelled to the Foya District, 25 March 2014, that became the Epicenter of the EVD Outbreak
EMERGENCY RESPONSE Participating in Daily Lofa County Coordination meetings to plan and evaluate Ebola Response Activities Worked along with County Health to vigorously carry out education and social mobilization in town and villages Meeting with traditional and religious leaders Meeting with youth and women’s groups Meeting with political local leaders
EMERGENCY RESPONSE Epidemiological Investigation of New Ebola Cases Ebola Contact Tracing Training of Burial Teams Establishing and Monitoring of Kolahun District Isolation Unit for new arrival in Kolahun District Decision of District elders and chiefs was strick restoration of movement of strangers and visitors, excluding response team member in the district and among towns and villages. For citizens of the district come into the district to seek refuge, the were not allow to go to there villages and towns, hence Isolation units were used to harbor these category of people
LABORATORY FACILITY PRIOR TO EBOLA
CLINICAL RESEARCH CENTER - LOFA
SATILLITE FACILITY
CAPACITY BEFORE EBOL A PHYSICIAN ASISTANT TRAINED LABORATORY TECHNICIAN
SPECIALIED DIAGNOSTIC CAPACITY Although limited, LIBR quickly developed into a lab that served the EVD outbreak with contribution mainly by NAMRU-3 followed by a whole host of partners. In collaboration with NIH and US DoD LIBR provided containment and critical PCR diagnostic capabilities for the Ebola virus detection. In the drive to further improve our capacity, we engaged USAMRID (US DOD) to assist LIBR with genomic equipment (Miseq)
SPECIALIED DIAGNOSTIC CAPACITY USAMRID also assisted us with training on the use of the Miseq equipment. During of the sporadic outbreak of EBOLA in March 2015, LIBR in collaboration with our USAmrid colleagues demonstrated for the first time that EBOLA could be transmitted sexual. Today, LIBR has a Liberian who is capable of genomic sequencing. We are making all effort for him and few more of our staff to get further training.
Infrastructure & Partnership…. FIRST LIBERIAN DIAGNOSING EBOLA NAMRU PCR TRAINING WITH NIH & NAMRU SUPPORT
POST EBOLA LAB CAPACITY
MENTORSHIP
Infrastructure & Partnership….
Post-EVD R&D Roadmap …. System Strengthening & Coordination • Ethics, Regulatory, Social Mobilization, etc. Capacity Enhancement for Rapid Response Human Resources, Ethics, Regulatory, etc. • Infrastructure to Address Emerging & Re-Emerging Diseases • BSL 2-3, Bio-bank, etc. Stimulate Research Programs Basic, behavioral, biomedical & clinical studies •
Snapshot of Research Activities ZMAPP Convalescent Plasma Vaccines Therapeutics EVD Survivors RDTs Behavioural Psychosocial Seroprevalence Biomedical
QUESTIONS ? THANK YOU
Recommend
More recommend
