Dr. Duduzile Ndwandwe, Head of Vaccine Implementation Science at the South African Medical Research Council’s (SAMRC) Cochrane South Africa (CSA), recently participated in the WHO Regional Office for Africa (AFRO) immunisation meetings held from 24–27 June 2025 in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. She emphasised the urgent need for stronger partnerships and evidence-based implementation to further immunisation goals across Africa.

Dr. Ndwandwe participated in the Regional Immunisation Stakeholders Meeting, where she was part of a high-level panel addressing the theme: “Strengthening partnerships to accelerate the implementation of the Immunisation Agenda 2030: What can be done differently?” In her presentation, titled “Advancing Partnerships in Implementation Research for Accelerated Results in Immunisation,” she underscored the importance of embedded implementation research in helping countries identify, test, and scale effective solutions in real-world contexts. “I was honoured to join key immunisation stakeholders and experts from across the continent in discussions that matter,” Dr. Ndwandwe shared. “These conversations highlighted the necessity for us to rethink how we collaborate, how we provide technical support to countries, and how we utilise evidence to accelerate the Immunisation Agenda 2030.”

Dr. Ndwandwe also engaged in the Regional Immunisation Technical Advisory Group (RITAG) sessions, where global and regional experts reviewed progress, identified barriers, and made recommendations on various topics, including Mpox, RSV, polio transition, and African vaccine manufacturing. “We must transcend the view of research as something external to programmes. Instead, research should be integrated within the health system, co-created with country teams, and focused on the challenges decision-makers face on the ground,” she stated.

A key focus was on Vaccine Implementation Science, which aimed at exploring how the immunisation ecosystem can better support countries through applied research. “These discussions reaffirmed the crucial role that implementation research plays in bridging the gap between evidence and impact,” Dr. Ndwandwe observed.

Her participation underscores the SAMRC’s strategic commitment to implementation research, particularly through CSA, which advocates for generating and applying evidence to inform policy and practice. “At Cochrane South Africa, we are dedicated to ensuring that research is not only produced but also effectively used to strengthen immunisation delivery, improve coverage, and ultimately save lives,” she mentioned.

As Africa moves toward achieving the targets of the Immunisation Agenda 2030, Dr. Ndwandwe’s message is clear: “To succeed, we must forge partnerships rooted in trust, align our efforts with national priorities, and ensure that implementation research becomes a routine aspect of how we approach immunisation.”

Ameer Hohlfeld, Senior Scientist at the South African Medical Research Council’s (SAMRC) Cochrane South Africa (CSA) attended the International Guideline Training and Certification Programme (INGUIDE), which took place from the 21-26 June 2025 in Milan, Italy. INGUIDE is a flagship, ISO-certified training and certification program for guideline development, established by the Guidelines International Network (GIN), McMaster University, WHO, and implemented at Humanitas University. The course addresses global disparities in guideline quality, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), by training professionals to develop trustworthy, context-driven clinical and public health guidelines using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) methodology and was attended by current and emerging guideline leaders, including five delegates from across Australia, Canada, Italy and Africa selected in partnership with WHO and sponsored by Humanitas University.

The programe is aimed at those who would like to be formally recognised to form part of international guideline development groups. Learning outcomes included the Systematic use of research evidence in decision-making, best practices in guideline development (e.g., evidence synthesis, stakeholder engagement) and practical tools, including GRADE framework adaptation (“adolopment”) across diverse settings, with real-world insights gained from cross-country exchanges, highlighting both methodological rigor and contextual customisation.

"Participating in INGUIDE at Humanitas was transformative—I gained not only in-depth methodological skills, but also a global network of proof-driven leaders committed to elevating guideline quality in diverse health systems", said Hohlfeld. With regards to future plans, he mentioned that he was looking forward to the continued rollout in the upcoming Course 3, and deepening competencies with a focus on building capacity in LMICs and expanding into related areas such as health technology assessment. “My ambition is to professionalise guideline methodology, enable mentorship, and secure funding for widespread and free certification”, concluded Hohlfeld.

The Cochrane South Africa Training Working Group (TWG) serves to advance and encourage research excellence through building health research leadership and capacity to strengthen translation of research into public health impact., the TWG hosted a workshop focused on Evidence-Based Methods at Nelson Mandela University on the 26-27 March 2025. The workshop was facilitated by Prof Mark Engel and Mr Lorenzo Bennie.

The programme was tailored to the needs of individual units or research groups, with this edition specifically for postgraduate supervisors and students, with emphasis on formulating an answerable question, searching for evidence using a targeted strategy, managing articles for data extraction, critical appraisal and synthesis of evidence using analysis software with the view of publication. 

The format of the workshop allowed interactive sessions; utilising examples brought forward by the participants’ research projects allowing for hands-on practical training with real-time problem solving and progress. Other noteworthy sessions included tools for assessing the risk of bias for various study designs, and a lecture on meta-analysis before culminating in finalizing a protocol and a write-up towards summarizing the evidence.    

The South African Cochrane Centre staff reminded the participants that ongoing mentoring following the initial sessions continues and remains available. Should you wish to receive invitations to attend these seminars or would like more information about these sessions please email cochranesa@mrc.ac.za.

Learn more about Cochrane South Africa Learning & support initiatives | HERE

The 5th Cochrane Africa Indaba 2025 was hosted by Cochrane Kenya at the Argyle Grand Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya from 14-15 May 2025. The theme of this international evidence-based health care conference was "Advancing evidence synthesis for health decision-making in Africa: Promoting health equity and access", bringing together researchers, health professionals, policy-makers, national, regional and international stakeholders, evidence-based healthcare champions, Cochrane Africa collaborators, patient and community advocates, and students to discuss progress, opportunities, and the future of evidence synthesis in Africa. At the Indaba, Cochrane South Africa (CSA), hosted a Prevalence Estimates Review Workshop, which was facilitated by Prof Mark Engel (Unit Director) and Dr Kimona Rampersadh (Post-doctoral fellow).

Prof Engel said “Prevalence studies employing a cross-sectional study design are useful for assessing disease burden or providing an understanding of the extent of a particular risk factor. Given the explosion in reporting of prevalence studies, rigorous syntheses of prevalence estimates have significant potential to assist stakeholders in resource allocation, personnel training, policy and decision making”.

The learning objectives of the workshop included: An overview of prevalence reviews, framing a question, Critical appraisal tools, Analysis primer, using Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) tool for prevalence studies together with Write up and interpretation sessions. “This workshop served to introduce participants to the distinctiveness of syntheses of estimates from prevalence studies and included a mixture of lectures and hands-on presentations”, added Prof Engel.

Learn more about Cochrane South Africa | HERE

The South African Cochrane recently conducted a two-day workshop on evidence-based healthcare (EBHC) research methods for staff and postgraduate students at the University of Venda. Hosted at the 2Ten Hotel in Limpopo from 17-19 March 2025, this hybrid workshop was facilitated by Prof Mark Engel, Ameer Hohlfeld and Lorenzo Bennie and was attended by post graduate students and staff members with the aim to provide participants with practical tools that can be incorporated into their research activities.

The workshop covered a range of relevant topics such as refining your research questions, searching for relevant articles, critically appraising included articles and a meta-analysis primer. A key feature of this workshop was the interactive sessions where participants were encouraged to work on their research questions and to ultimately present their work for constructive feedback from peers, based on EBHC methods.

Lorenzo Bennie said, “This workshop approach included many interactive sessions, where participants were given practical hands-on training, where they were able to work on their manuscripts. This deepened the participants' understanding of EBHC methods and contributed to a supportive learning environment.

Marking national Vaccination Week from 24-30 April 2025, Cochrane South Africa ran a research translation campaign to highlight the findings from the systematic reviews they recently published on vaccination. Over the 3-day campaign, 7 national TV, radio and newspaper outlets were engaged with, including eNCA news, SA FM, Cape Talk, Power FM, Rise FM, Channel Africa, and The Citizen.

In these engagements, scientists from Cochrane South Africa shed light on the complex social, political, and systemic reasons for vaccine hesitancy that were revealed by the reviews they led on views and practices around childhood and Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination. They also highlighted the findings from their review on the effectiveness of mobile phone text message reminders to improve vaccine uptake and recall rates. They provided insights into how the public, health professionals, policymakers and others could use the findings from these different reviews to promote vaccination in ways that are more acceptable, sensitive and ultimately effective. 

According to Newsclip, the campaign generated R609 820 worth of positive publicity and reached about 2.3 million audiences.

Dr Duduzile Ndwandwe, a Specialist Scientist at Cochrane South Africa attended the 12th EDCTP Forum taking place from the 15–20 June 2025 in Kigali, Rwanda. The forum is a key platform for advancing Africa-led health research and innovation, bringing together a diverse set of stakeholders, including representatives from research institutions and universities, the larger scientific community, health care providers, governments, regional bodies, regulators, civil society, and public and private research and development partners.

Dr Ndwandwe presented at the scientific symposium session “Improving Our Preparedness Capabilities for Global Response to Infectious Diseases”, with her talk entitled ‘Strengthening African Funder Coordination: The Establishment of the GloPID-R Africa Regional Hub,’ highlighting her teams work towards aligning funders to support regional outbreak response.

She also participated on the Africa CDC panel on “How can Africa-led R&D transform health innovation on the continent?”, while also serving on the Meet-the-Expert speaker on clinical trial registration, drawing on the work done on the Pan African Clinical Trials Registry (PACTR) and Cochrane South Africa.

Dr Ndwandwe said “It was gratifying to see PACTR mentioned in the opening plenaries as a testament to my team, who work tirelessly to keep the Registry going and relevant in the evolving research landscape. Strategic side meetings have been central to this Forum, strengthening ties with regional partners and advancing key initiatives under the GloPID-R Africa Hub and PACTR. These engagements continue to be crucial for establishing collaborative, African-led research ecosystems that foster transparency, preparedness, and lasting impact.”

Learn more about Pan African Clinical Trials Registry | HERE