On 13-14 July, over 70 participants from health systems policy makers, researchers, funding agencies, scientific societies, regional technology developers and international organisations in the field of Personalised Medicine (PM) and health research institutions met in Nairobi, Kenya. The aim of the workshop was to discusse Personalised Medicine and identify regional specific needs around the area of PM for potential collaboration between other African Sub-Regions and Europe. The East African countries’ participants came from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Ethiopia. Joining in the discussions were EU-Africa PerMed consortium members from Europe, different African Sub-regions; West and Southern Africa and representatives from the European Union Commission (EC).
Some important issues were found to be the major challenges for developing PM in the region:
- Limited funds
- Limited knowledge on the African genome for precise diagnostics and relevant drug treatment
- Pharmacogenomic aspects to address current serious adverse drug reactions on essential drug use
- Infrastructure to conduce genomic, data and health system science
- Ethico-legal issues
The workshop provided the opportunity to discuss about the need and potential to set up country/regional task forces to further strengthening science and policy initiatives for capacity building and collaborations in PM.
The East Africa regional workshop was the first of a series of regional workshops (North, West/Central and South Africa) organised in the cause of 2022. The outcome of all regional meetings will be discussed in the next EU-Africa PerMed Stakeholder Workshop in February 2023, in Cape Town, South Africa.
More information about the EU-Africa PerMed project: https://www.euafrica-permed.eu/
More detailed information about the workshop results can be found in the EU-Africa PerMed press release.
EU-Africa PerMed is part of the 'ICPerMed family'.
