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Research Ethics Committees in Africa and Latin America

Imane Ermich, Clemence Thebaut, Maelenn Guerchet, Farid Boumediene, Pierre-Marie Preux

Background: Research Ethics Committees (REC) play a crucial function in ensuring the review, commentary, guidance, and approval of research involving humans or animals to protect the dignity, rights, safety, and well-being of study participants. Many low and Middle Income Countries (lMIC) focused considerable attention on developing REC. To date, there is a lack of information on the structure and operating modalities of REC in lMIC. This study describes the functioning of REC in latin America and Africa and compares the situation between the different lMIC under study.

Methods: HR Web platform was used to get a general idea of the existing REC, to collect available information, as well as to identify contacts of existing REC. A questionnaire describing modalities of functioning was then sent to the different contacts identified on the website and other personal contacts.

Results: Results found on HR Web showed that among the 54 African countries listed, 176 REC were representing 36 countries. In latin America, 1009 REC in 16 different countries were mapped. For most REC, little information was available on the website. While the questionnaire was sent to 79 countries, 52 mapped on the site and 27 other committees that are not mapped on HRWeb, but when knows their existence according to experts and having an accessible contact. Only 38 REC responded and were included in the study, representing 20 countries from both regions.

Interpretation: This was the first survey conducted on the description of REC in Africa and latin America, providing a clear vision of their missions, composition, functioning, and the challenges encountered. This study found that there are still many challenges facing research ethics committees in latin America and Africa. These include insufficient training in research ethics for ethics committee members, low funding for ethics committees, and lack of oversight of approved projects.

Keywords: Research ethics committee; low and middle income countries; latin America; Africa