Posts Tagged ‘Sabin Vaccine Institute’

Sabin Vice-President Dr. Ciro de Quadros Receives Chesley Perry Award from Rotary International

February 26th, 2010

 

End Polio Now

Exciting News!

The Rotary Club of Chicago has presented Sabin Vice-President Dr. Ciro de Quadros with the Chesley Perry Award for Distinguished Humanitarian Service for global polio eradication.

Dr. de Quadros led the team responsible for developing a surveillance and response strategy to eliminate polio from the Americas. Based on the success of the polio eradication strategy, the World Health Organization (WHO) committed to the global eradication of polio.

Worldwide, polio has been eliminated in all but four countries: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan. The Americas were declared free from polio in 1994, the Western Pacific region in 2000, and Europe in 2002.

“Ciro’s contributions to worldwide polio eradication efforts are immeasurable and he continues to be a defining advocate for polio eradication in the few places where the disease remains,” said Sabin President Dr. Peter Hotez. “All of us at Sabin congratulate Ciro on receiving this distinguished award. With the strong support of champions like Ciro, the eradication of polio can be achieved in the near future.”

End Polio Now2

The award presentation on February 23rd coincided with Rotary International’s 105th anniversary and a global call to “End Polio Now.” Landmarks around the world including, Chicago’s Wrigley Building; the Egyptian Pyramid of Khafre; Buenos Aires’ Obelisk; and the Taipei 101 building displayed an “End Polio Now” banner calling attention to the devastating effects of polio, a crippling disease that can be fatal and disproportionately affects children under the age of five.

In addition to Dr. de Quadros, notable figures in attendance for the award presentation and lighting ceremony included: Illinois Governor Pat Quinn; Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley; the Reverend Jesse Jackson, President of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition; James Galloway, U.S. Assistant Surgeon General; and Ed Futa, General Secretary of Rotary International.

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Posted in Global Development, Global Health, Public Health, poverty

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New Paper Advises Universities on How to Aid NTD Efforts

February 24th, 2010

Recent trends have shown a dramatic increase in student interest in NTDs and global health in general. However, the role of universities in the field of NTDs has lagged behind student interest. While that’s happening, there is a widening innovation gap in NTD treatments and the field of NTDs remains largely underfunded. So in a field in need of innovation and research funding, what can universities do to create significant, positive change?

That very question is the topic of an editorial recently released in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases  by Dr. Peter Hotez, President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, Sandeep Kishore, abiomedical fellow at Weill Cornell, The Rockefeller University, and Sloan-Kettering Institute, and Gloria Tavera, a Fullbright Research Scholar at the Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica in Mexico.

In the paper they recommend three key steps that universities can take. The first step is for universities to develop new seed funds for NTD research. These seed funds could go to providing new student fellowships, operational support, or any number of other beneficial purposes. The second step is eliminating IP barriers around NTD research. Removing those barriers would make the development of life-saving drugs quicker and cheaper. The third step is to create new metrics that favor NTDs regarding faculty appointments. Current metrics are biased against NTDs, contributing to the gap between student interest in global health and NTDs and the opportunities universities provide.

By following these three steps, universities can become key movers in the NTD field, making invaluable contributions and saving countless individuals from the grasp of disease.

To read the complete paper, click here.

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In addition, please visit http://globalnetwork.org/just50cents/campus-challenge to read about the Global Network’s signature grassroots effort to get college students involved in the opportunity to make a meaningful impact by becoming a Student Ambassador and fighting the world’s most neglected tropical diseases.

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Posted in Campus Challenge, Global Development, Global Health, NTDs, Public Health, reading list

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Dr. Thomas Cherian, Pneumonia Expert, Honored for Efforts to Reduce Deaths from Preventable and Treatable Diseases

February 4th, 2010
Dr. Cherian recieving the PACE Global Leadership Award
Dr. Cherian recieving the PACE Global Leadership Award

On the heels of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s $10 billion commitment to fund vaccine research, development and delivery throughout the developing world, a leading pneumonia expert, Dr. Thomas Cherian of the World Health Organization (WHO), was honored Monday in Geneva for his efforts to accelerate access to vaccines preventing pneumococcal disease, the world’s leading vaccine-preventable killer of children under age five.

Over the course of a 25-year career that began at the Christian Medical College in Tamil Nadu, India, Dr. Cherian, who currently serves as coordinator of the Expanded Programme on Immunization at the WHO, has made significant contributions and remained committed to fighting pneumonia and pneumococcal diseases.  Last year, he led efforts to produce the first-ever country-by-country estimates of pneumococcal disease burden. This work found that in India, for example, more than 140,000 children die each year of pneumococcal disease — approximately one child every four minutes in India alone.

Dr. Cherian received the Pneumococcal Awareness Council of Expert’s (PACE) Global Leadership Award, which recognizes an individual, organization or country that has championed pneumococcal disease prevention and made a significant contribution towards policies that advance the introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines.  Pneumococcal disease is a leading cause of pneumonia which kills an estimated 2 million children under age five each year.

The contributions of individuals to the health field are not always publicized but it’s the efforts of individuals like Dr. Cherian that add to the collective goal of reducing deaths from preventable and treatable diseases, whether infectious or neglected.

The Global Network and PACE are initiatives of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, whose mission is to reduce needless human suffering from infectious and neglected tropical diseases.

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Posted in Global Development, Global Health, Public Health

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Future Vaccine May Block the Bite of Malaria Transmitting Mosquitoes

January 15th, 2010

Mosquito

Mosquitoes are renowned for being pesky little insects that can leave you scratching your arms during the warm months, but for individuals residing in proximity to the Anopheles genus—the only species of mosquito which can transmit malaria—the bite of an infected mosquito is more than a nuisance and can be fatal if not promptly treated with the proper medication.

Each year nearly 900,000 people die of malaria, with the majority of deaths occurring in children under the age of five in Sub-Saharan Africa.  With this devastating toll in mind, researchers from the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health and Sabin Vaccine Institute have formed a partnership to develop a novel vaccine—a “transmission blocking” vaccine that would stop the malaria parasite from developing in the mosquito, and thus, block the transmission of malaria from mosquitoes to humans.

Over the next 18 months, MVI, Johns Hopkins, and Sabin will collaborate to produce and characterize an antigen that can activate the body’s defenses to disrupt the complex human-mosquito transmission cycle of malaria. When an infected mosquito takes blood from a person vaccinated with the AnAPN1 vaccine—which field research indicates is capable of blocking transmission of the two deadliest malaria parasites, Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax—antibodies in the humans’ blood will prevent the parasite from attaching to and invading the mosquito’s gut.

Learn More Here

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Posted in Global Health, Uncategorized

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World Pneumonia Day 2009

November 2nd, 2009

Did you know that pneumonia is the leading killer of children under the age of five? The infection kills one child every 15 seconds.

Although it’s not a neglected tropical disease, the deadly impact that pneumonia wreaks on individuals around the world—particularly children under the age of five—is neglected and unknown by many.

WPDAnd that’s why today, November 2, marks the first annual World Pneumonia Day created to mobilize efforts to fight a neglected disease that kills more than 4 million people each year and claims the lives of more children under the age of five than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined.

You can help Sabin Vaccine Institute’s Pneumococcal Awareness Council of Experts (PACE)—a coalition of global experts working to raise awareness about pneumococcal disease, a leading cause of pneumonia—put a spotlight on this preventable infection by educating yourself, family and friends about pneumonia; signing the pledge to fight the disease; and participating in a World Pneumonia Day event.

Armed with knowledge, we can utilize the readily available tools to treat and prevent pneumonia, and protect children from ever contracting the infection.

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The Global Network and PACE are initiatives of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, whose mission is to reduce needless human suffering from infectious and neglected tropical diseases.

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Posted in Global Health

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