Fortalecimento dos Comités de Bioética nos Países Africanos de Lingua Portuguesa

In the last decade, in Lusophone African countries, like in other countries from Africa, health research has increased and in response Research Ethics Committees have been established namely in Universities, Research Centers and Ministries of Health. But these committees still face a serious lack of staff trained in research ethics, and the "language divide" is an important barrier faced by them, as the main ethics educational resources are only available in English. The aim the north-south LusoAfro-Bioethics initiative, financed by EDCTP, is to strength capacity for health research ethics review in African portuguese speaking countries. More specifically, the objectives are: to improve institutional and personnel capacities of Angola, Cape-Verde and Mozambique ethics committees; to enhance the efficiency of clinical/ health research applications reviews; to promote collaborative/ networking activities in research ethics in lusophone countries; to share good practices on Standard Operation Procedures, Protocol Review and international regulatory ethical and legal norms and standards and finally to promote the establishment of University of Cape Verde Institutional Review Board. The actions developed under this initiative aimed to develop robust capacities for ethical review of clinical research in Sub-Saharan African portuguese speaking countries.