Global Spotlights South–South Partnerships in Cardiovascular Research in Africa: empowering the next generation of cardiovascular researchers Ana Mocumbi 1,2,3 , Edna Lichucha 1,2 , and Karen Sliwa 4 * 1 Instituto Nacional de Sa ude, Maputo, Mozambique; 2 Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, Mozambique; 3 Mozambique Institute for Health Education and Research, Maputo, Mozambique; and 4 Cape Heart Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa Introduction Professor Karen Sliwa, Director of the Cape Heart Institute (CHI) at the University of Cape Town (UCT), met with her long-time collabo- rator, Professor Ana Mocumbi, Vice-President of the Mozambican Institute for Health Education and Research (MIHER) on a recent visit to Mozambique (June 2021). Their collaboration, which goes back more than a decade, has been formalized by a Memorandum of Understanding between UCT and MIHER. This important regional partnership aims to build capacity for the design and implementation of research in chronic cardiovascular diseases. They work on several collaborative research projects and ini- tiatives, through which they link the Department of the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane and the Division of Non-communicable Diseases at the National Health Institute (Instituto Nacional de Sa ude, Mozambique) with the CHI, to promote regional partnerships for car- diovascular research and capacity building. The Mozambique Institute for Health Education and Research The MIHER is a research support centre which has been created to catalyze and mobilize resources to improve the training of health pro- fessionals, develop biomedical research and to support health pro- grams. It is a non-profit organization (established in 2011), which carries out its activities with various partners, including national univer- sities, regional and international government institutions, NGOs, and bilateral cooperation agencies. One of the key factors for the creation of MIHER was to address the enormous health professional shortages in Saharan Africa, which constitutes one of the major challenges in global health, and to ensure equity in healthcare to populations. Indeed, while Africa has 24% of the disease burden in the world, it has only 3% of health workers, and <1% of the financial resources, available to healthcare worldwide. Overall, one-third of vacancies available for lecturers in African medi- cal schools are not filled, or lecturers must find alternate ways to sup- plement their income. In terms of scientific production, only 10% of clinical teachers/lecturers in African universities are involved in research. Mozambique is no exception, with only 4 doctors per 100 000 inhabitants, compared to countries like the USA where the ratio is 280 doctors per 100 000 inhabitants. In Mozambique, of the doctors who qualified between 1980 and 2006, 25% had left the public sector by 2010 and, of these, 62.4% went to the private sector in the country. MIHER strives to promote good biomedical research governance and administration and serves as a research support centre for Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, while also supporting the administra- tion of projects implemented by the Instituto Nacional de Sa ude and Mozambique’s National Health Service. The Cape Heart Institute The Cape Heart Institute (recently renamed from Hatter Institute for Cardiovascular Research in Africa) is a formally UCT accredited Institute and is housed in the Chris Barnard Building, Faculty of Health Sciences. Through its bridge position between laboratory-based research and clinical research the CHI sees itself as an institution foster- ing translation. The Cape Heart Institute creates a modern, consolidated and vibrant environment between a number of shared laboratories, facilities, and expertise, in which scientific excellence is pursued within a number of laboratory groups, each headed by a scientist of international stature and facilitated by an efficient and effective infrastructure, central- ized facilities and minimum bureaucracy, thereby enabling local research capacity to prosper in Africa. The CHI has currently 8 research group- ings, >60 staff and students and is led by Prof. Karen Sliwa, who is also the immediate past president of the World Heart Federation. * Corresponding author. Tel: þ27 21 4066358, Email: karen.sliwa-hahnle@uct.ac.za Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved. V C The Author(s) 2021. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com. European Heart Journal (2021) 00, 1–3 doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehab671 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/eurheartj/ehab671/6374772 by guest on 26 September 2021