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Our History

The Global Emerging Pathogens Treatment Consortium (GET) History

The Global Emerging Pathogens Treatment Consortium (GET) was established in 2014 as a direct response to the 2014-16 Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa and ongoing outbreaks of Lassa Fever, Meningitis, Multidrug resistance (MDR) enteric fevers and Yellow Fever across the sub region.

There was clearly a need to create an African-led multidisciplinary forum of experts capable of working together with international partners to strengthen Africa’s preparedness and resilience in tackling such infectious disease outbreaks caused by emerging pathogens, public health emergencies and pandemics.

GET found the understanding of biosecurity to be a very underdeveloped area on the continent with clear opportunities for using biosecurity to dramatically improve on capacity for prevention and medical countermeasures during public health crises. GET now operates firmly in the African Biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, space and functions as a think tank, providing high level advocacy and operational and necessary expertise to support Countries and communities achieve improved resources to combat outbreaks and other public health emergencies that can threaten stability, peace and security thereby undermining economic growth and well being.

The Global Emerging Pathogens Treatment Consortium (GET) is a non-profit Pan-African led effort comprising of experts in the fields of infectious diseases, various sub-specialties of pathology, physicians, bioinformatics, bio-banking, ethics, social science, community engagement, patient advocates, logistics, engineers and government administrators.

The consortium is working with international collaborators with a goal of providing strategic recommendations and establishing infrastructure and research capacity to respond to highly infectious emerging Pathogens such Ebola, ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic.

The Consortium creates a rapid informed response strategy and provides advice and guidance to African countries, and a point of reference for international funding and aid agencies.

Our Vision Mission and Objectives

OUR VISION

To ensure all countries in sub-Saharan Africa are prepared for Public Health Emergency of International Concern PHEIC

OUR MISSION

To build the capacity of relevant stakeholders in States and Institutions in Africa for effective mitigation against (re)emerging infectious disease.

Our Objectives

To anticipate in advance through surveillance and data gathering the possibility of the emergence or entrance of dangerous pathogens on the continent of Africa and make appropriate recommendation to minimize risk.
To identify conditions that lead to the emergence of dangerous pathogens such as conflict and environmental perturbations and make necessary recommendations to mitigate such risk.
To conduct research into preceding and current outbreaks in a harmonized fashion across the continent and disseminate in a timely fashion the findings of research conducted.
To develop the framework for ethical and community acceptable research and medical interventions that is cognizant of the culture and belief systems of the indigenous people of the continent and which engenders trust.

To act as a conduit for access to expertise by international respondents in scenarios where outbreaks create state of emergencies and to facilitate collaborative relationships in fashion that does not impose a threat to sovereignty and dignity of the continent.
To promote high level advocacy necessary for ensuring political will is focused on appropriate spending on research and development necessary to fast track all of the above.
To develop capacity building for the effective development of blood plasma products on the continent of Africa.
To develop the technology platforms for the monitoring and safety of patient data and biodata.
To facilitate global support for targeted vulnerable populations.
To facilitate regulatory frameworks and guidelines for informing research into emerging pathogens on the continent.

Our Governance Structure

GET is administered by the project management team with oversight from the Advisory Board which is headed by a chairman. GET is functionally structured into Working Groups which provide participants the opportunity to discuss matters and implement strategic plans captured within the Terms of Reference of the respective working groups. The Chair of the project management team is the Principal Investigator (PI), supported by the Chief Operating Officer, Regional Chairs and major funding partners. The PI operates in regular contact with the Chair of the Board of Advisors receiving guidance for major operational advice. The PMT defines the executive direction of the Consortium. The products of the working groups are presented to the PMT and the Consortium at large.