State needs to take lead in funding clinical research
CLINICAL research in SA was in free fall as a result of declining investment in the field and the government needed to take the lead with additional funding and training programmes, University of Cape Town head of the department of medicine, Prof Bongani Mayosi, said yesterday.
In 2010, over half the output of SA’s scientific papers were produced by people over the age of 50, young medical professionals were not finding the field attractive, and there was a threat of SA’s contribution to global clinical research drying up altogether if nothing was done, Prof Mayosi said at the Board of Healthcare Funders of Southern Africa conference in the Drakensberg.
Prof Mayosi was part of a 13member team that compiled a report about revitalising clinical research in the country for the Academy of Science of SA. A key reason to improve the level of research was to restore SA’s position as a preferred destination for clinical research in emerging economies.
Recommendations of the team include increasing the national budget for research and development to 2% of growth domestic product, with 20% reserved for health research.
The Department of Health needed to increase its expenditure in its budget for research from 0.37% at present, to 2%.
Other recommendations included a new system for the regulation, planning and co-ordination of clinical research, a national clinical scholar programme to produce more PhDs, dedicated national research chairs for clinical science and the creation and funding of clinical research centres in each academic health complex, he said.
Barriers that had led to a decline in clinical research included inadequate public engagement, lack of planning, regulation and coordination, lack of human resources and infrastructure and an absence of monitoring and evaluation.
Prof Mayosi’s experience from the University of Cape Town was that there was interest among young people in a career involving clinical medical research, “but what is lacking is a national programme”.