CURRENT STATUS OF CLINICAL TRIALS IN ETHIOPIA:HOW MUCH IS DONE?

Abstract

Introduction:  Clinical trials are a cornerstone of modern evidence based medicine. They are an important step in discovering new treatments for certain diseases as well as new ways to detect, diagnose, and reduce the risk of disease. They also highly support the clinical practice by generating local evidence. The aim of this study is to evaluate the status and trend of clinical trials in Ethiopia from international trial registries. Material and Methods:  We have searched WHO International Clinical Trial Registry Platform (WHO ICTRP) for all trials with at least one recruitment center in Ethiopia. The results were exported in XML format and a rational database was formed. Results:  Up to November 15,2016; 145 clinical trials were found to be registered from Ethiopia. Majority of trials were design on infectious disease (n = 87, 60%) and the rest were done on NCD. The five most common infectious disease evaluated were Malaria (n=15; 10%), Tuberculosis (n=13; 9%), trachoma (n=12; 8%), HIV (n=11; 8%) and helminthiasis (n=6; 4%). The most common NCD was malnutrition (n = 19; 13%) and only one trial was on cancer, namely Wilms Tumor (1%). London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine was the sponsor with the highest number of registered trials (n=8, 6% of all trials), followed by Columbia, Jimma and Ghent University with 5 (3%) trials each. Conclusions: The clinical trials done in Ethiopia are very much limited in number and variety. To improve the situation the government, industry, academic institutions, patient advocacy groups, professional societies and other organizations should work together.