Communicable Disease Research Programme Consortium (COMDIS)

www.comdis.org

WHO WE ARE       

COMDIS is a Research Programme Consortium that works to drive research and development to combat communicable diseases in low-income countries. Through our more than 50 ongoing and completed projects, COMDIS helps to ensure that prevention and treatment interventions for TB, malaria and HIV/AIDS are effectively delivered through strengthened healthcare systems to reach those most in need.

COMDIS is funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK government and runs from 2006-2011.

The lead coordinator of COMDIS is the Nuffield Centre for International Health and Development at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom (UK), working alongside partners in China, Bangladesh, Ghana, Nepal Pakistan, Swaziland and Malaria Consortium in Uganda and the UK. Each country has its own health systems and specific challenges. COMDIS works closely with national health programmes to find solutions which will work in these low income countries.

OUR STRATEGY

Effective healthcare, with timely and high quality interventions, needs efficient and integrated healthcare systems. In many low income countries these do not exist and the challenge is therefore to design research leading to practical solutions.

The big idea behind COMDIS is to anchor communicable disease research within operational programmes, so that knowledge generated is relevant and rapidly incorporated into policy and practice. This ensures that utilization of effective interventions is at a very large scale and reaches poor and vulnerable people.

COMDIS researchers therefore seek to address the priority questions that control programmes most want answered, and provide support to national programmes to achieve health care results, a process we call ‘embedded research.’

COMDIS works with partners to identify the ‘bottlenecks’ to effective implementation of communicable disease programmes. The research evidence and experience is translated into initiatives aimed at strengthening delivery systems, scaling up access, or improving the quality of interventions.

We also focus our attention on communicating major findings from COMDIS research and on building an information bridge that links researchers with civil society, international institutions, policy makers, local health workers, local populations and donors across partner countries and beyond.

Malaria Consortium projects within COMDIS include:

• Evaluating different distribution methods for long-lasting insecticidal nets
• Evaluation of quality of malaria case management in the public sector after change in the Uganda National Policy to ACTs as first-line treatment
• Assessment of operational accuracy of the ICT Pf rapid diagnostic test for malaria
• Evaluation of adherence to and stock management of artemether/lumefantrine unit dosed pre-packed compared to blister packaging
• Assessment of Home Management of Malaria using rapid diagnostic tests in Uganda
• The impact of long-lasting insecticidal net usage on malaria and lymphatic filariasis in an area co-endemic for both diseases
• Effectiveness of rapid diagnostic test in diagnosis of malaria in pregnancy in Uganda