Nigeria HIV Research Training Program

About This Grant

Women comprise about 50% of the 36.7 million people living with HIV worldwide and in many sub-Saharan African countries including Nigeria, ~2 out of 3 HIV infected adults are women. Even more worrisome is the observation that overwhelming number of new infections in Nigeria occur among young women of childbearing age, and as such, one-third of all global cases of mother-to-child transmission of HIV occurs in the country. Not only is the burden of HIV higher in women, the impact of its scourge is far more reaching. HIV is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among women of reproductive age in Nigeria. HIV complicates every aspect of health across a woman’s lifespan, including reproductive health where it impacts partner sero-sorting and sexual habits, fertility desires and contraceptive choices, pregnancy and delivery, menopause and aging. Tackling the myriads of health challenges confronting women living with HIV is a necessary step to achieving the WHO global strategy for women’s, children’s and adolescent health. It will require nurturing a critical mass of local health scientists and equipping them with the skills to conduct valid research that addresses the local health needs of women living with HIV. To address these needs, we established the Emory-Nigeria HIV Research Training Program (EN-RTP). The EN-RTP leverages the research education infrastructure at Emory University and the partnering Nigerian institutions (Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR); University of Lagos (UNILAG); and AIDS Prevention Initiative Nigeria (APIN)) to provide state-of-the-art in-country research training with focus on methodologies, rigorous mentorship, and grant management capacity building. The EN-RTP training is focused on three main domains of HIV/women’s health research: a) HIV prevention and reproductive health; b) Challenges in HIV therapeutics unique to women living with HIV (WLWH); and c) Complications of chronic HIV infection relevant to WLWH. Preceptors are selected based on their expertise in these areas and their international research education and mentoring experience. We can report that the EN- RTP is now an established program with a cohesive administrative structure and program plan that includes both didactic and mentored research components implemented by a multidisciplinary team of in-country faculty and US-based investigators who have a wide range of mentoring experiences. The short- and medium-term accomplishments include high scholar productivity (over $3M in grant funding, including 3 NIH K 43 awards and more than 150 peer-reviewed publications by trainees), fostering robust scientific networking opportunities, developing emerging in-country scientific leaders, and nurturing the next generation of HIV research mentors. The EN-RTP has demonstrated a potential to be truly transformative in promoting mentored research training and the growth of the HIV biomedical research workforce. Committed to the primary goal of capacity building in HIV research, we look forward with enthusiasm the next cycle – particularly the opportunity to pilot new initiatives and best practices arising from our evaluation processes to enhance program outcomes.