Delegates from all of our collaborators in SimpliciTB TB travelled from across the world to attend the annual face to face General Assembly (GA) meeting in Mbeya, Tanzania. Trial progress was reported, with a focus on recruitment and medical monitoring. An important development was the launch of the Capacity Development programme that allows members of the consortium to bid for funds to develop sites across Africa, for training and for innovative seed-corn projects.
The GA also decided to add Uganda Case Western Reserve University Research Collaboration (Uganda) and Kibong’oto Infectious Disease Hospital (Tanzania) to the consortium.
Dr Erica Sanga from the National Institute Medical Research, Mwanza Medical Research Centre (NIMR-MMRC) presented and facilitated an interactive workshop on Community Engagement and Good Participatory Practices in TB Trials (GPP-TB). Engaging the community who suffer the effects of tuberculosis is very important for the consortium and this workshop helped to give everyone the tools necessary to reach out to local communities and communicate the true nature of the disease.