Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa)

About H3Africa

The Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) is a major programme initiated in 2010 by the National Institute of Health (NIH), Wellcome, and African Society
of Human Genetics (AfSHG). H3Africa supports population based studies that use genetic, clinical and epidemiological tools to better understand how the interplay between human genes andthe environment in uence disease susceptibility, pathogenesis and prevention with the goal of improving the health of African populations.

Why Genomics Research is Important for Africa

Mapping the genetic diversity of Africans:

  • will increase the understanding of why some diseases are more prevalent and devastating on the African continent than in the rest of the world.
  • will promote tailored public health interventions for African populations for maximum impact.
  • will promote the study and understanding of societal implications of genomics research leading to development of favourable community focused guidelines.
  • will reduce the continent’s disease burden, which is the highest in the world and minimise healthcare costs through preventive medicine.

African Academy of Sciences’ Role

In its efforts to shift the centre of gravity of its funding for African science from the UK to Africa, Wellcome gave a grant of $11M to the African Academy of Sciences and the NEPAD Agency’s Alliance of Accelerating Science in Africa (AESA) to manage the phase IIof its component of the H3Africa programme. AESA was launchedin 2015 with the support of the Wellcome, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).

It is an Africa-led, Africa-centred, and Africa-speci c platform for developing strategies, mobilising resources, implementing science, technology andinnovation (STI) programmes in Africa and evaluating the impact of these investments.

AESA was founded to disrupt the status quo and scientific landscape, and to ensure that Africa takes ownership and leadership in shaping the destiny of African science. AESA will therefore be responsible for the delivery of the Phase II awards for the H3Africa initiative and to manage the H3Africa consortium in partnership with Wellcome and NIH. AESA launched the H3Africa call in quarter 1 of 2017 which culminated to selection of 4 brilliant projects that will receive awards to start their work in quarter 1 of 2018.

 

 Click here to visit the H3Africa Website