Safeguarding health and well-being of people: How Clinical Trials in Africa set for Sustainable Development Goals?
by Swapan Kumar Patra, & Mammo Muchie, Asian Biotechnology Development Review, 2017, 19(3), 3-23.
Abstract: To make availabile cheap medicines for number of diseases is one of the pressing challenges in Africa. Clinical trials are the foundation for making new medicines and continuation of the existing medicine. With the diverse patient population, African continent is a fertile ground for conducting clinical trials by many pharmaceutical firms, universities or research institutes. Governments of many African countries have adopted suitable pharmaceutical policies to make these countries comparatively researcher friendly and thus attracting firms or institutes to conduct the clinical trials. Governments of these countries are considering in making them centre of excellence in pharmaceutical and healthcare research. As a result, over the past few decades, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of registered clinical trials all -over Africa. This study is an attempt to map the clinical trial activities in African continent using data from the clinical trial database (ClinicalTrials.gov) website of the United State Government. It has been observed that although there has been a growth of clinical trials all -over African continent in the recent years, it is comparatively lower to other parts of the globe. The total number of the trials have shown that they are only conducted and that too to a limited extent in a few countries of the continent having stronger science and technology (S&T) base. The study concludes with some policy recommendations, including uniform research guidelines, and ethical regulations for further improvement of clinical trial research in Africa.
Keywords: Healthcare, Africa, Clinical Trial, Internationalization, Globalization, Globalization of R&D
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