The BALANCE study site in Bangladesh is at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, the largest public tertiary care teaching hospital in Bangladesh. The hospital is the hub of undergraduate and postgraduate clinical teaching and medical research in the country.

The Bangladesh key investigators are:

•Prof Dr Shah Monir Hossain (Country Coordinator)
•Brigadier General Nazmul Haque (Administrative Lead)
•Dr Refath Farzana (Scientific Lead)
• Prof ABM Abdullah (Advisor)
•Prof Md Nazmul Islam, Director of Communicable Disease Control (Government representative)

The BALANCE study site in Pakistan is at Quaid-i-Azam University is the largest public university in Pakistan, located in Islamabad.
 

The Pakistan key investigators are:

•Prof Rabaab Zahra (Country Lead)
•Prof Kashif Shafique (Site Lead, Civil Hospital Karachi)
•Dr Muhammad Idrees (Site Lead, Khyber Teaching Hospital, Peshawar)
•Dr Abbas Naqvi (Site Lead, Nishtar Medical University & Hospital, Multan)
•Dr Brekhna Hassan (Scientific Lead)
•Dr Ammara Mushtaq (Karachi Clinical Lead)

The BALANCE study site in Nigeria is at National Hospital Abuja, a referral hospital under the Federal Ministry of Health, located in Abuja, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria. The hospital is a center of delivering specialised patient care, research, and education for sustainable national and regional development.

The Nigeria key investigators are:
•Dr Kenneth C. Iregbu (Country Lead)
•Dr Philip Nwajiobi-Princewill (Site Coordinator, National Hospital Abuja)
•Dr Aminu Aliyu (Site Coordinator, Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital)
•Dr Ifeyinwa Nwafia (Site Coordinator, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital)
•Dr Chioma Achi (Scientific Lead)

The Ministry of Health & Sanitation is the government department responsible for the delivery of health care services in the public sector in Sierra Leone. There are currently 32 functioning hospitals in Sierra Leone supported by a network of 417 functioning peripheral health units under this Ministry.

The Sierra Leone key investigators are:

•Dr Zikan Koroma (Country Lead)
•Dr Abdul Razak Mansaray (Country Implementer)
•Dr Nellie Bell (Site Lead, Ola During Children’s Hospital, Freetown)

The BALANCE administrative site in Turkey is located at Koç University, a non-profit private university in Istanbul, Turkey. The Health Sciences Campus includes the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, research laboratories and the Advanced Learning Centre.

Turkey key investigator:

Prof Onder Ergonul (Country Lead)

There are two administrative sites for the BALANCE study in Italy.

Ospedale Pediatrico Bambino Gesù (Baby Jesus Paediatric Hospital) is a tertiary care academic children's hospital located in Rome that is under the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the Holy See. As a tertiary children’s referral centre, the hospital provides over 20 specialities of healthcare through 10 paediatric departments. The key investigator here is Dr Paola Bernaschi.

The IRCCS Arcispedale Santa Maria Nuova of Reggio Emilia, Italy, is a 923 acute care beds tertiary hospital located in Reggio Emilia. The Clinical Microbiology Laboratory processes microbiological samples from the main hospital and five small peripheral hospitals, covering an area of 600,000 inhabitants and more than 1500 acute care beds. The key investigators are:

•Prof Edoardo Carretto (Site Lead)
•Roberta Marrollo, Biologist, Consultant
•Riccardo Bianchi, Biologist, Registrar
•Francesco Navazio, Biologist, Registrar
•Benedetta Roatti, Biologist, Registrar
•Laura Cavazzuti, Health Department

There are two administrative sites for the BALANCE study in Poland.

Site 1 is the Multidisciplinary Provincial Hospital, a public tertiary care teaching hospital in Gorzów, Poland. The hospital has a capacity of 786 inpatient beds and 22 beds in the intensive care unit.

The key investigator is Prof Maciej Zukowski.

Site 2 is the Dr A. Jurasz University Hospital No 1, a public tertiary care teaching hospital in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The hospital has a capacity of 904 inpatient beds and 39 beds in the intensive care unit.

The key investigator is Prof Aleksander Deptula.