Update - Research and development goals for COVID-19 in Africa

The African Academy of Science (AAS) conducted a consultative webinar followed by a survey based on the WHO Roadmap to define African research priorities for the COVID-19 outbreak. The Research and Development goals for COVID-19 in Africa report was published on 24th April 2020. This report proposed a prioritization list for research and development for the COVID-19 outbreak in Africa. The findings were that African researchers largely supported the WHO Roadmap research priorities, but also identified a list of additional sub-priorities of relevance to the African health and research environment. The landscape of Covid-19 research needs and research outputs continues to change with possibilities of research breakthroughs converting into significant reported findings in some areas. There needs to be a concerted effort to continually review the priorities for Covid-19 research and development as events unfold. The AAS in partnership with AUDA NEPAD, together with The Global Health Network (TGHN) and The United Kingdom Collaborative on Development Research (UKCDR) therefore conducted a survey to update the initial list of priorities identified in Africa. This updated list will promote the use of funding to currently relevant global priorities, with particular consideration to LMICs as designated in the World Bank list. In this report we present a summary of results for responses from researchers across the African continent.