Concepts in research capabilities strengthening positive experiences of network approaches by TDR in the People's Republic of China and Eastern Asia

Abstract

Strengthening human and physical resources for health research is an important function of any sustainable public health approach. The process of successfully embedding research into health systems in developing countries calls for the participation of competent, national scientists, with input and support where appropriate from international research institutions. Without a research-friendly environment, it is not easy for institutions and control programmes to engage and deliver products that can contribute to improving general health status. For example, monitoring is an important component of disease control but this can now be built upon to design surveillance systems capable of reporting activities in real time based on geographical information systems and continuous internet access. Informed surveillance can take on a stronger role than just capturing transmission foci to also become instrumental in directing swift responses in a spatially explicit and cost-effective manner. Further, whenever assessments of impact and control measures for different diseases are similar as they are, for example, with respect to schistosomiasis and food-borne trematode infections, the amalgamation of separate control programmes becomes realistic even if diverse strategies were originally developed for the diseases in question. Developments like this are guiding the expansion of research capabilities to espouse the integration of multidisciplinary research into national disease control programmes. The deployment of public-private partnerships as vehicles for operational progress and the endorsement of regional networks as platforms for driving research, while at the same time supporting and promoting training and dispersion of new knowledge, represent further manifestations of innovation in disease control. Some Asian examples of how this can be accomplished are provided.