International Collaboration With a View to Containing Outbreak of Emerging Infectious Diseases Through Bioprospection

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The past few decades have witnessed an evergrowing trend of international scientific collaboration and partnership as favored means of building capacity and transfer of technology with respect to bioprospecting in developing countries like Africa. It is frequently stated that Africa is a famous biological hotspot with unique biodiversity and traditional knowledge but inherently lack proper state-of-art technologies, technical expertise, and funding to extensively probe and add value to them. This chapter therefore, endeavors to survey the significance of international collaborations as an instrument for bioprospection in the African regions, geared toward containing eventual outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs). The author also focuses on how outbreaks of EIDs in the Indian Ocean has resulted in international collaborations and transfer of technology among developing African member states and between some developed and developing countries. One case study overviewed herein is the recent epidemic outbreak of the chikungunya fever in the Indian Ocean which resulted in the setting of an international center for research and intelligence on EIDs in the Indian Ocean for collaborative effort, and which subsequently endowed the PHYTOCHIK consortium. Furthermore, mandates of important African organizations and partnerships such as AAMPS (Association for African Medicinal Plants Standards), CRVOI (International center for research and intelligence on emerging diseases), IMRA (Malagasy Institute of Applied Research), ICIPE (International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology), NAPRECA (Natural Product Research Network for Eastern and Central Africa), ICBGP (The International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups Programs), ISP (International Science Programme), NCI-US (The US National Cancer Institute), and the Malaria Consortium, which have been on the forefronts of developing international collaborations on bioprospection in Africa, are also addressed. Taken together, multi-international partnerships have nurtured panoply of regional and European consortiums geared toward identification and development of standard extracts and potential pharmacophores from the local biodiversity in compliance with the Convention on Biological Diversity and World Trade Organization. In conclusion, international joint ventures in Africa have fostered important development programs, capacity building, led key transfer of technology, mutual sharing of bioresources with the idea of access and benefit sharing, encouraged exchange, and networking between European and African bioprospectors.