Addressing the mental health needs of healthcare professionals in Africa: a scoping review of workplace interventions.

Healthcare workers in Africa face considerable stress due to factors like long working hours, heavy workloads and limited resources, leading to psychological distress. Generally, countries in the global north have well-established policies and employee wellness programs for mental health compared to countries in the global south. This scoping review aimed to synthesize evidence from published and grey literature on workplace mental health promotion interventions targeting African healthcare workers using Social Ecological Model (SEM) and the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model as an underlying theoretical framework for analysis.

Scaling up access to antiretroviral treatment for HIV: lessons from a key populations program in Nigeria.

Over the years, Nigeria has recorded significant progress in controlling the HIV epidemic in the country. HIV prevalence has reduced from 4.1% in 2010 to 1.

Whole-genome sequencing across 449 samples spanning 47 ethnolinguistic groups provides insights into genetic diversity in Nigeria.

African populations have been drastically underrepresented in genomics research, and failure to capture the genetic diversity across the numerous ethnolinguistic groups (ELGs) found on the continent has hindered the equity of precision medicine initiatives globally. Here, we describe the whole-genome sequencing of 449 Nigerian individuals across 47 unique self-reported ELGs. Population structure analysis reveals genetic differentiation among our ELGs, consistent with previous findings.

Governance of research involving people with psychosocial disabilities.

Health-related research with human participants is governed by research ethics regulations in most jurisdictions. Globally, the 2016 International Ethical Guidelines for Health-related Research Involving Humans, published by the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS), are especially influential and widely held as an international standard. The CIOMS guidelines support the inclusion of people with psychosocial disabilities in research and offer clear guidance to promote their recruitment, including by outlining provisions for substitute decision-making.

Evaluation of accuracy and performance of self-reported HIV and antiretroviral therapy status in the Nigeria AIDS Indicator and Impact Survey (2018).

Background: Data on awareness of HIV status among people living with HIV (PLHIV) are critical to estimating progress toward epidemic control. To ascertain the accuracy of self-reported HIV status and antiretroviral drug (ARV) use in the Nigeria HIV/AIDS Indicator and Impact Survey (NAIIS), we compared self-reported HIV status with HIV rapid diagnostic test (RDT) results and self-reported ARV use with detectable blood ARV levels.

Methods: On the basis of responses and test results, participants were categorized by HIV status and ARV use.

Guideline for feedback of individual genetic research findings for genomics research in Africa.

As human genomics research in Africa continues to generate large amounts of data, ethical issues arise regarding how actionable genetic information is shared with research participants. The Human Heredity and Health in Africa Consortium (H3Africa) Ethics and Community Engagement Working group acknowledged the need for such guidance, identified key issues and principles relevant to genomics research in Africa and developed a practical guideline for consideration of feeding back individual genetic results of health importance in African research projects. This included a decision flowchart, providing a logical framework to assist in decision-making and planning for human genomics research projects.

Optimizing community linkage to care and antiretroviral therapy Initiation: Lessons from the Nigeria HIV/AIDS Indicator and Impact Survey (NAIIS) and their adaptation in Nigeria ART Surge.

Background: Ineffective linkage to care (LTC) is a known challenge for community HIV testing. To overcome this challenge, a robust linkage to care strategy was adopted by the 2018 Nigeria HIV/AIDS Indicator and Impact Survey (NAIIS). The NAIIS linkage to care strategy was further adapted to improve Nigeria's programmatic efforts to achieve the 1st 90 as part of the Nigeria Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) Surge initiative, which also included targeted community testing.

Ensuring Optimal Community HIV Testing Services in Nigeria Using an Enhanced Community Case-Finding Package (ECCP), October 2019-March 2020: Acceleration to HIV Epidemic Control.

Purpose: The 2018 Nigeria HIV/AIDS Indicator and Impact Survey (NAIIS) showed Nigeria's progress toward the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets: 47% of HIV-positive individuals knew their status; of these, 96% were receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART); and of these, 81% were virally suppressed. To improve identification of HIV-positive individuals, Nigeria developed an Enhanced Community Case-Finding Package (ECCP). We describe ECCP implementation in nine states and assess its effect.

Lessons From Rapid Field Implementation of an HIV Population-Based Survey in Nigeria, 2018.

Background: The need for accurate HIV annual program planning data motivated the compressed timeline for the 2018 Nigerian HIV/AIDS Indicator and Impact Survey (NAIIS). The survey team used stakeholder cooperation and responsive design, using survey process and paradata to refine survey implementation, to quickly collect high-quality data. We describe processes that led to generation of data for program and funding decisions, ensuring HIV services were funded in 2019.

Lessons from the Ebola epidemics and their applications for COVID-19 pandemic response in sub-Saharan Africa.

COVID-19, caused by a novel coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2, was identified in December 2019, in Wuhan, China. It was first confirmed in sub-Saharan Africa in Nigeria on 27 February 2020 and has since spread quickly to all sub-Saharan African countries, causing more than 111,309 confirmed cases and 2,498 deaths as of 03 June 2020. The lessons learned during the recent Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreaks in some sub-Saharan African countries were expected to shape and influence the region's responses to COVID-19 pandemic.

How Should Biobanking Be Governed in Low-Resource Settings?

Development of biobanks in Africa raises ethical questions related to particular features of African cancer research contexts, such as underresourced health care and research infrastructures and low-average research literacy. This article describes ethical challenges of informed consent, benefit sharing, and stigmatization and proposes navigating these challenges by developing a comprehensive governance framework to ensure African leadership in biobanking research programs in Africa.

Engaging research ethics committees to develop an ethics and governance framework for best practices in genomic research and biobanking in Africa: the H3Africa model.

In the past decade, there has been an increase in genomic research and biobanking activities in Africa. Research initiatives such as the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) Consortium are contributing to the development of scientific capacity and infrastructure to support these studies on the continent. Despite this growth, genomic research and biobanking have raised important ethical challenges for key research stakeholders, including members of research ethics committees.

Model framework for governance of genomic research and biobanking in Africa - a content description.

Genomic research and biobanking are expanding globally, with a promise to fast-track the research needed to improve approaches to disease treatment and prevention through scientific collaborations such as the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) initiative. Integral to this type of research is the availability of samples and data for research. The need for broad access brings along a host of ethical concerns, including those related to privacy and confidentiality, as well as fairness and equity in access and capacity to utilise these samples between scientists from the high income and low income countries.

Considerations for community engagement when conducting clinical trials during infectious disease emergencies in West Africa.

Community engagement in research, including public health related research, is acknowledged as an ethical imperative. While medical care and public health action take priority over research during infectious disease outbreaks, research is still required in order to learn from epidemic responses. The World Health Organisation developed a guide for community engagement during infectious disease epidemics called the Good Participatory Practice for Trials of Emerging (and Re-emerging) Pathogens that are Likely to Cause Severe Outbreaks in the Near Future and for which Few or No Medical Counter-Measures Exist (GPP-EP).

Research priorities during infectious disease emergencies in West Africa.

Objectives: This paper presents the results of the consultations conducted with various stakeholders in Africa and other experts to document community perspectives on the types of research to be prioritised in outbreak conditions. The Delphi method was used to distill consensus.

Results: Our consultations highlighted as key, the notion that in an infectious disease outbreak situation, the need to establish an evidence base on how to reduce morbidity and mortality in real time takes precedence over the production of generalizable knowledge.

Regulation of genomic and biobanking research in Africa: a content analysis of ethics guidelines, policies and procedures from 22 African countries.

Background: The introduction of genomics and biobanking methodologies to the African research context has also introduced novel ways of doing science, based on values of sharing and reuse of data and samples. This shift raises ethical challenges that need to be considered when research is reviewed by ethics committees, relating for instance to broad consent, the feedback of individual genetic findings, and regulation of secondary sample access and use. Yet existing ethics guidelines and regulations in Africa do not successfully regulate research based on sharing, causing confusion about what is allowed, where and when.

Ebola vaccine development plan: ethics, concerns and proposed measures.

Background: The global interest in developing therapies for Ebola infection management and its prevention is laudable. However the plan to conduct an emergency immunization program specifically for healthcare workers using experimental vaccines raises some ethical concerns. This paper shares perspectives on these concerns and suggests how some of them may best be addressed.

Stakeholders' engagement with Ebola therapy research in resource limited settings.

Background: The current Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa is the largest in history. As of February 18(th) 2015, 23,258 cases of EVD have been cumulatively reported from Nigeria, Senegal, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States of America resulting in more than 9,000 deaths. It is therefore exigent to develop prevention and treatment therapies for EVD.

Community engagement strategies for genomic studies in Africa: a review of the literature.

Background: Community engagement has been recognised as an important aspect of the ethical conduct of biomedical research, especially when research is focused on ethnically or culturally distinct populations. While this is a generally accepted tenet of biomedical research, it is unclear what components are necessary for effective community engagement, particularly in the context of genomic research in Africa.

Methods: We conducted a review of the published literature to identify the community engagement strategies that can support the successful implementation of genomic studies in Africa.