El Masry El Yom retracts accusations

The newspaper that originally published the accusations against NAMRU-3 and AUC also released a new point of view today...

El Masry El Yom Receives a Copy of the AUC and NAMRU-3 Contract
by: Ola Abdalla

El Masry El Yom received a copy of the officially signed contract by NAMRU-3 and AUC in Cairo, 26 September 2006, and its amendments over the past three years. The contract stipulates the specialized cooperation in the field of infectious diseases scientific research.

The Contract, which has been renewed annually for three years, states that both parties approves to select the AUC to cooperate and supervise all aspects concerning scientific, research and administrative specialties, and is obligated to recruit and hire a highly competent work team to cooperate with the unit in infectious diseases research, in Egypt and the region.

According to the contract terms, AUC is in charge of recruiting scientists with higher caliber of scientific knowledge, skills, and abilities requested and specified by NAMRU-3 from all universities, besides coordination with the unit’s management including researchers, program heads, department heads, and executive management to determine the employment goals for each member of the work team regarding academic specialty, programs, protocol details and objectives. The hiring contract obligates AUC to develop human resources regarding compensation, life and health insurance programs, benefits, travel, salaries, supervision, and performance evaluation.

On the other side, NAMRU-3 shall supervise and arrange local and abroad travel for the work team including tickets, accommodations; provide security and stability for researchers, and equipment to achieve their research goals.

Contract terms indicate that “it is not a contract to conduct personal research programs, but it is for public service in medical research arena, and the four amendments of the contract had not mentioned the hired researchers’ salaries.

Contract total cost is $600,000.000/year, 5% for administrative affairs, 4% for additional expenses such as grants programs, local legal expenses, and other expenses related to the program.