The Sub-Saharan African Network for TB/HIV Research Excellence (SANTHE) was established in 2015
SANTHE was established in 2015 when Professor Thumbi Ndung’u, a faculty member at the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis & HIV (*K-RITH), in Durban, South Africa, was awarded a $11.2 million USD grant by Wellcome Trust and the UK Department for International Development to fund a ground-breaking, collaborative tuberculosis (TB) and HIV scientific research capacity building programme.
SANTHE was one of 11 programmes to receive such funding which was administered by the African Academy of Science (AAS) through the Developing Excellence in Leadership, Training and Science (DELTAS) Africa programme – a ground-breaking initiative which aimed to establish cutting-edge research and training programmes across the African continent.
The SANTHE grant was formalised at an inception meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, on the 10th of September 2015, and was used to set up a network of research institutes and universities with a united goal: to empower African science and scientists in the fight against HIV/AIDS and TB through pioneering and cutting-edge research. At the time, SANTHE included four co-applicant research sites in South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, and Rwanda/Zambia, seven African collaborating partner sites, as well as several international collaborating sites. The network was led by a Consortium Steering Committee comprising principal investigators from the co-applicant sites as well as other experts in the field, and chaired by Ndung’u.
The incentive to form SANTHE was based on the fact that Sub-Saharan Africa is most impacted by the HIV and TB co-epidemics worldwide, but this was not reflected in the current scientific efforts made to tackle the issue. Resource constraints and other issues in Africa meant that collaborations had largely been with the USA or Europe rather than “south-south” co-operation within the continent. The network’s aim was to change this and to make a significant contribution based on access to large numbers of patients and samples of those directly affected by both diseases. The programme was also formed on the premise that localised research is strictly necessary to enable researchers to study the actual viruses, bacteria, and strains that are present in Africa and then apply interventions and fine-tune them. The standpoint was that only by working in affected communities could researchers truly find solutions to public health challenges. The SANTHE programme expected to benefit from existing HIV and TB research programmes and the wider network of expertise present in the region and offer training in all scientific career stages, from interns to post-doctoral fellows.
Five years later, SANTHE had gained a reputation for encouraging outstanding science in HIV/TB, developing African leadership, strengthening research ecosystems, striving for maximum impact of its research, and pushing boundaries for greater all-round success.
*K-RITH was a collaboration of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of KwaZulu-Natal based in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, which, after a merger with the Africa Health Centre in Mutubatuba, KwaZulu-Natal, in October 2016, became known as the Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI).
