From 20 th to 21 st 2024, the project “Training epidemiologists and biostatisticians for enhanced response to disease
outbreak and epidemic in west Africa – TEBWA”, one of the EPI fellow projects funded by EDCTP2 had their closing workshop at the Millenium Popo Beach Hotel, Agoue, in Benin.
The TEBWA project is run by the University of Abomey-Calavi in Benin in consortium with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM, England), and the National Agency for Primary Health Care of the Ministry of Health (ANSSP/MoH, Benin), and aims to train 15 Masters level specialists in Epidemiology and Biostatistics for West Africa.
The closing workshop aims to: (i) summarize the achievements, lessons learnt from the project, and perspectives, (ii) share results of the research conducted by the Master students of the project, and (iii) engage stakeholders on the sustainability of the project.
On day 1, the opening ceremony was marked by several speeches namely from the project coordinator (Prof. Romain Glèlè Kakaï), the Honorary Director of the Doctoral School in Health Sciences of the University of Abomey-Calavi (Prof Dismand Houinato), and the Director of the Doctoral School of Agronomic and water Sciences (Prof Marcel Houinato). All speakers recognized the merits of the TEBWA project, the immense support of the EDCTP2, and wishes that this collaboration continues.
The achievements, lessons learned, and perspectives of the project were presented as well as the feedback received from TEBWA fellows about the project implementation, the support they received, the impact of the project on their capacity, the project activities, and suggestions for improvement. Discussions revolves around the creation of a network of West-African Biostatisticians and TEBWA alumni (which are already ongoing) as well as the creation of a Centre/Institute of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
Then seven out of the fifteen TEBWA fellows presented the results of their research which covered statistical and mathematical modelling as well as meta-analysis on diseases such as COVID-19, Lassa Fever, Cholera, and Malaria. They received comments from experts in Epidemiology and Biostatistics to improve their manuscripts that are currently being prepared.
In the last session, the TEBWA fellows and participants were trained on “Geospatial and web-based mapping of health outcomes with R”. This training was led by Prof. Justice Moses K. Aheto who is Associate Professor at the Department of Biostatistics (University of Ghana, Accra).
