Fleming Fund Country Grants

Project 8 Jun 2021
122

The Fleming Fund is a £265 million UK aid investment to tackle antimicrobial resistance in low- and middle-income countries around the world. The programme is managed by the UK Department of Health and Social Care, in partnership with Mott MacDonald, the Fleming Fund Grants Management Agent.

The Fleming Fund Country Grants are designed to provide technical assistance to build laboratory capacity and strengthen surveillance systems for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and antimicrobial use (AMU) across the human, animal, and environmental health sectors. The Centre for Capacity Research (CCR) is part of a consortium led by DAI that has been awarded four Fleming Fund Country Grants in Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Indonesia. The objectives across each grant are to:

-        Strengthen governance in AMR in each country.

-        Strengthen One Health Approaches to information sharing for antimicrobial usage and AMR.

-        Strengthen surveillance of AMR and AMU in Human and Animal Health and in the environment.

CCR is primary providing support to the third objective, the establishment of surveillance systems in each country. Outlined below are some illustrative activities CCR have been supporting:

Laboratory Assessment

CCR have conducted laboratory assessments of human and animal national reference laboratories in Nigeria and Pakistan, assessing both their technical and quality management capacity using both Fleming Fund and LSTM developed tools. CCR also supported in-country teams to conduct capacity assessment of sentinel site laboratories and helped interpret their findings. Lessons learned from these two countries led to improvements to the laboratory assessment tools that were used in Indonesia and Bangladesh.

Laboratory capacity improvement planning

CCR worked with national reference laboratories in Pakistan and Nigeria to develop comprehensive capacity strengthening plans including elements such as infrastructure, quality, personnel, and finance. These plans were used by in-country teams to develop plans for sentinel site laboratories to help understand what interventions would be required to allow them to sustainably function as sentinel sites for AMR.

Laboratory refurbishment design and equipping

CCR worked withlocal and international engineering and laboratory technical teams to develop refurbishment designs for all laboratories in Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Bangladesh. CCR provided input to ensure the plans conformed with international standards of laboratory design. CCR has also provided substantial input into the procurement of equipment and consumables across all four Fleming Fund countries.

Development and strengthening of national external quality assurance schemes

For the first Pakistan country grant CCR provided support to strengthen the National External Quality Assurance (NEQAS) programme for bacteriology managed by the National Institute of Health (NIH). As part of the second country grant, CCR continues to provide support to the NIH to achieve ISO  17043 accreditation of the NEQAS scheme and is assisting the animal health sector to develop the same. CCR has provided technical input into the development of national NEQA schemes in Nigeria and Bangladesh in collaboration with other national and international partners.

Private sector laboratory engagement

CCR has provide support to both Pakistan and Bangladesh national teams to develop strategies for the engagement of private sector laboratories in human and animal health in AMR surveillance.

The team

Staff