Building a cooperative strategy between Europe and Mediterranean Countries for upgrading tuberculosis research and control

Objective

Tuberculosis (TB) accounts amongst the most deadly infectious diseases worldwide. Despite the availability of a vaccine and effective drugs, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the etiologic agent of TB, still defies the humanity. An alarming increase in drug resistance and emergence of outbreaks has made it urgent the need for increased surveillance and control. With its structured global geographical distribution, it becomes increasingly clear that this pathogen could have established an advantageous association with its host. Such region-specific host-pathogen equilibrium argues for a TB control at a regional level. The overall objective of the present proposal consists in establishing a network connecting leading institutions in the field from the three North African countries (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) and Europe. The aim is to upgrade the research and surveillance capacity potential of these Europe’s most neighboring Mediterranean partner countries (MPC) through know-how sharing, two-way experience exchange, training, joint research activities, and equipment upgrading. By reinforcing existing human and technological resources in the targeted MPCs, the planned activities will contribute to better address the host and pathogen key factors governing TB transmission/expansion dynamics, emergence of drug resistance, and host susceptibility. This will endow MPCs with higher capacity to better unveil the molecular mechanisms leading to the prevailing epidemiological situation in the specific regional context. Since TB is a health threat common to both sides of the Mediterranean Sea, which is amplified through consistent population migration flows, the planned cooperative initiative could also positively impact on TB control in Europe. Ultimately, dissemination of the project’s results will foster the MPCs’ institutional visibility and scientific competitiveness, allowing them to be more integrated for participation to future European framework program calls.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

• medical and health sciences health sciences infectious diseases
• medical and health sciences basic medicine pharmacology and pharmacy drug resistance
• medical and health sciences clinical medicine pneumology tuberculosis
• medical and health sciences basic medicine pharmacology and pharmacy pharmaceutical drugs vaccines

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

• FP7-REGPOT - Specific Programme "Capacities": Research potential of Convergence Regions

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

• REGPOT-2009-2 - Any research topic covered by the EC FP7 (EC/EP Decision No 1982/2006/EC of 18 December 2006, published in the Official Journal 30.12.2006 L 412)

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-REGPOT-2009-2
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

CSA-SA - Support actions

Coordinator

Participants (6)