8 Building Biomedical Research Capacity in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Why It Matters and Some of the Barriers to Success

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter elaborates on the importance of preexisting research capacity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) for strengthening resilience against emerging and re-emerging infectious disease (EID) threats. In a broad sense, resilience is the ability of societies to maintain their core functions while responding to infectious disease outbreaks and other threats to the well-being of the population in order to minimize their health impact and other socioeconomic consequences. As the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, broadly available research capacity can contribute to resilience by helping the global research community refine the research questions that should be asked, elucidate essential scientific information about emerging pathogens more quickly and effectively, and develop and assess medical countermeasures (MCMs) such as vaccines and treatments for the disease. Strong research capacity in LMICs would help identify, characterize, and then slow or contain the spread of a new or unfamiliar pathogen, especially when it first appears in a geographically confined outbreak in one or a few contiguous LMICs. This may give research scientists more time to understand and counteract it. LMIC research capacity also contributes to more equitable governance of research during outbreaks, with at least the potential for broader distribution of MCMs than was seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Building biomedical research capacity is not a simple matter as it requires educational and healthcare systems that can support it by producing the necessary personnel, and, through health system functions like biosurveillance, access to patient data and the capacity to conduct clinical trials to assess MCMs. Such capacity building will require sustained investment by countries and international partners, but that investment would be more than justified even on solely economic terms by one averted pandemic. Additionally, the value of progress toward universal healthcare that comes with comprehensive capacity building is incalculable.