Aim 2: To increase SCD and associated NCDs research capacity across the life span

During this period, we continued with capacity building activities forhealth workers in various aspects of Sickle Cell Disease. We held (five) monthly online sessions for the 31 health workers that had started training in the Management of SCD and held the final 2-day face to face training in June 2024. We still follow up these trainees with online mentorship and plan to have some onsite mentorship training for them to enhance and sustain their skills. We advertised the second 6 month training for health workers in May 2024.  Due to the big need for this training as evidenced by the big number of applicants, we selected 60 participants. We held two (separate) 3 day face to face trainings  in September 2024.  The participants included paediatricians, physicians, medical officers, nurses, midwives, clinical officers and laboratory personnel working at district, regional, and lower health units from different districts of the country. We also held the first online training for the trainees in November 2024, and these sessions will run once a month for a period of 6 months.  This will be followed a final face to face session for each of the groups. We plan to identify and train some of these health workers as trainers of trainers a during the next 2 years, and will later support them to conduct training of more health workers at the district/regional levels. Furthermore. We held a one-day online training in SCD for journalists to enable them improve reporting about the disease. This training was requested by the journalists to improve their knowledge about SCD.