Fight against pandemics

According to WHO in 2020:

• 627 000 deaths are due to malaria;
• 1.5 million people died from TB (including 214 000 people with HIV);
• 680 000 people died from HIV-related causes.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating impact on the fight against HIV, TB and malaria on key and vulnerable populations. Decades of progress against HIV, TB and malaria have being derailed as a knock-on effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These infectious diseases remain a major challenge for global health. France is strongly committed, alongside the Global Fund and UNITAID, to achieving the eradication of these pandemics by 2030.

As the French public international technical cooperation agency, Expertise France contributes to this effort and supports projects to allow partner countries to achieve the objectives of fighting against diseases.

To this end, it mobilises an extensive pool of technical experts, especially French and French-speaking experts, who are deployed in the field, with the aim of building the capacities of health workers, civil society and central administrations.

Our objectives

• Build the capacities of national actors for access to Global Fund grants and their management and implementation

• Contribute to improving environments, by taking action to strengthen health systems

• Promote the adoption of innovative approaches, informed by conclusive data, to support the fight against pandemics

Our main projects

L'Initiative

L'Initiative is a real accelerator of access to Global Fund financing and a promoter of changes in health practices and policies. Since 2011, L'Initiative is:

• Providing technical assistance to help stakeholders from eligible countries to obtain funding from the Global Fund and implement their strategies;

• Funding catalytic projects, such as intervention, research, or pilot projects addressing priority health issues and experimenting with targeted and flexible strategies against pandemics;

• Producing knowledges deemed useful to the local, regional, and national participants in the fight against pandemics. L’Initiative also helps French and French-speaking stakeholders to fulfill their accountability to their technical and financial partners and the Global Fund ;

• Promoting the influence of French-speaking stakeholders engaged in the fight against pandemics and to help them highlight their models and projects on the world stage.

L'Initiative is financed and placed under the supervision of the French Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs as part of the contribution to the Global Fund.It has a steering committee made up of representatives from Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the research community, the Ministry of Health and Solidarity, and members of civil society.

To find out more: www.initiative5pour100.fr/en

L’Initiative 2021 Annual report: www.linitiative2021.fr/en/

OPP-ERA: Improving the follow-up of people living with HIV

2013-2019 – UNITAID, ANRS

Under the scientific direction of the National Agency for Research on AIDS and Viral Hepatitis (ANRS), this project implemented by Solthis, Expertise France and Sidaction has increased access to viral load tests and integrated their use into health systems in 4 countries: Burundi, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire and Guinea.

A total of 300 health workers have been trained and 11 laboratories renovated and equipped. Over 180,000 viral load tests have been carried out, thanks to a continuous availability of health products and the organisation of systems to collect samples and give the results. Expertise France was responsible for the Ivorian and Cameroonian components of this project.

Look at the interactive documentary about OPP-ERA (in French): webdoc-chargevirale.solthis.org

Nepal: Improving the quality of HIV care

2016-2019 – EUR 1M (GLOBAL FUNDS)

The Ministry of Health of Nepal, via the NGO Save the Children and the Global Fund, called on Expertise France to implement a project to build national capacities to provide care for people living with HIV.

This project has combined residential support on clinical aspects and short-term expert missions on specific expertise: paediatrics, pharmacology, virology. It has strengthened the capacities of 200 caregivers from 50 different institutions (HIV clinical nurses, nurses, pharmacists) to manage and monitor HIV patients (children, adolescents and adults) on a dozen sites across the country.