PANDORA

PANDORA is the Pan-African Network For Rapid Research, Response, Relief and Preparedness for Infectious Disease Epidemics

What is PANDORA? 

PANDORA is a novel multidisciplinary ‘One Health’ initiative that supports broad themes addressing response to emerging infections in Africa. Our mission is to develop and strengthen effective outbreak response capacities across all geographical regions in sub-Saharan Africa, in partnership with national governments and other international stakeholders.

PANDORA is a €10 million grant funded by the European and Developing Countries Clinical trials Partnership (EDCTP).

Who we are

PANDORA consists of partners from 13 African and 9 European Institutions.

The membership of PANDORA is extensive and brings together  One Health infectious disease experts from the Global North and South, with skills in laboratory and clinical research, veterinary and social sciences and ethics.

Main aims 

1) Rapid Response 

Our aim is to support the development of robust ‘ready to go within 48-72 hours’ PANDORA-ID-NET trained outbreak rapid response teams that can appraise, evaluate and conduct public health research in each of the four African regions. These will be linked to other regional and global networks on emerging infections and will, wherever possible be multidisciplinary, including members from the clinical, veterinary, environmental and operational sides of disease research.

2) Capacity Development

We aim to develop our sites’ capacity to conduct research, evaluate and appraise scientific tools in both the emergency outbreak or epidemic situation and during the inter-epidemic period. This includes many different areas of disease research, including operational, anthropological, social science, basic science, translational clinical, clinical trials and implementation research. Wherever possible this should be multi-disciplinary, incorporating members from all areas of the OneHealth network.

3) Training
We aim to develop (through high quality training and mentorship) the younger generations of African scientists, healthcare workers, laboratory personnel, clinical trialists, ethicists, and social scientists to take leadership of public health research. This training will cover many areas of research, such as diagnostic techniques, emergency response, financial management, bioinformatics, ethics and quality management.

4) Advocacy
Our aim is to engage and fully involve politicians, policy makers and global public health agencies at the highest level during all stages of our programme. We have links with FIND, ALERRT, Africa CDC, Nigeria CDC, African Union, ASLM. 

Objectives

PANDORA is split into seven work packages.