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Strategic Aim Three - Global health

In the foreword to the Government’s strategic document, Health is Global , the Prime Minister identified the challenge of bringing the benefits of biomedical research to all people across the world. The MRC’s support for global health research will bring a distinctive and effective contribution to health problems, while recognising that there are excellent African scientists who are part of the solution.

Objective

To support global health research that addresses the inequalities in health which arise particularly in developing countries.

Now

The MRC has supported health research in developing countries for over 80 years, with a changing focus from nutrition research to infections research. The MRC units for delivering research include the MRC Laboratories in The Gambia and the MRC/UVRI Uganda Research Unit on AIDS (UVRI stands for Uganda Virus Research Institute). Through the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP), the MRC and Department for International Development have also supported European and African collaboration on drug and vaccine trials for HIV, TB and malaria. This programme brings together 16 European countries which together spend €200m in this area, along with €200m from the Commission itself.

Future

The MRC will build on our existing strengths to carry out world-class research and deliver its benefits to global communities.

  • We aim to help governments improve the ability of their health systems to deliver effective interventions and care, to ensure that the outputs of research can influence policy and practice, and to determine how health systems can best cope with the already overwhelming burden of infections and the additional burden of non-communicable diseases that are yet to come.
  • In this era of unprecedented numbers of emerging infections, and with the imminence of a flu epidemic or pandemic and drug-resistant TB, we aim to respond quickly to new and emerging infections. We also aim to address problems in health inequalities.
  • We aim to continue our leading role in tackling diseases such as HIV, TB, malaria, and neglected tropical diseases such as leishmania which impact so heavily on the health and wellbeing of populations in resource poor settings.

How

We will engage with governments, public and private sector global research funders and development agencies to build sustainable local or regional networks to support research on health inequalities through to implementation by policy makers. We will remain committed to a substantial portfolio of work and to support and develop existing centres of research excellence in Africa.

  • We will create opportunities for such centres to build on key methodological and technological strengths supported through MRC funding in the UK.
  • We will launch a new scheme to support scientific leadership in Africa, working closely in each country to obtain high-level support and sustainable commitment.
  • Where possible we will seek to leverage funds from other agencies, product development partnerships or programmes such as EDCTP to help accelerate progress with these major diseases.
  • We will work with partners to identify the best ways to take forward research on health care infrastructure in developing countries to ensure that the outputs of MRC research lead to healthier lives.

We will work with our partners across the world to develop a global alliance to tackle the grand challenge of non-communicable diseases in developing countries (Daar AS et al. (2007). Grand challenges in chronic non-communicable disease. Nature. 450. 494).

  • Working with scientists in India, China and sub-Saharan Africa, we will identify opportunities for research that will lead to affordable strategies for the prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases that now account for a large proportion of the burden of disease in low- and middle-income countries.
  • We will try to understand the interactions between communicable and non-communicable diseases and the impact of infectious diseases on population genetics – a cutting-edge field at global level.