The devastating impacts of the sub-regional Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak clearly demonstrated a significant need to foster collaboration, build human capacity, strengthen laboratory infrastructure, promote community participation in outbreak response, and formulate strategies to harmonize ethical and regulatory pathways to successfully implement clinical trials on vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. This sub-regional concept led to a gathering of scientific leaders from the highly impacted EVD countries in the Republic of Guinea to identify a regional approach as the most ideal model to promote complex multi-site cross-border clinical trials, share information on case management during outbreak response, conduct capacity building workshops on regulatory and ethical challenges during public health emergencies (PHEs), identify and strengthen core laboratory systems, share biological samples, and create suitable platforms to share research findings for the mutual benefits of the vulnerable citizens of the sub-region. Accordingly, the West African Consortium (WAC) for Clinical Research on Epidemic Pathogens (WAC-CREP) was borne out of this shared interest by researchers from Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and later Mali and Cote D’Ivoire to advance regional preparedness for global health security by sharing regional research, best practices, and evidence to inform infectious disease policies.

To-date, the consortium has supported the launch of a sub-regional multi-country clinical trial for EVD vaccines, conducted five successful sub-regional scientific conferences and sub-regional training workshops, developed strategic plan to strengthen sub-regional health systems, conducted sub-regional technical and policy expert meeting on EVD survivors, recruited Ministers of Health (MoHs) to serve as Ambassadors, and collaborated on grants, among others. The success of this sub-regional collaborative model clearly demonstrate the benefits of regional collaboration to mitigate emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) of poverty, especially in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).