PNEUMOADIP March-April 2004

PNEUMOFOCUS

BULLETIN OF GAVI'S PNEUMOADIP AT JOHNS HOPKINS BLOOMBERG SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
PNEUMO ADIP: PNEUMOCOCCAL VACCINES ACCELERATED DEVELOPMENT AND INTRODUCTION PLAN

Volume 1, No. 2 March/April, 2004

NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

This issue highlights the range of activities being supported by PneumoADIP and the central role that partnerships play in achieving those goals. First, you’ll read about the small grants program – specifically designed to help us partner with developing country researchers. Next, you’ll hear about the kick off of an exciting surveillance project through our partnership with researchers in Bangladesh.

In collaboration with our sister project for rotavirus vaccines, we’re working with a broad range of public and private sector partners to address the need for accurate, timely demand forecasting. Last but not least, there is the upcoming ISPPD-4 meeting in Helsinki May 9-13. Over the past 8 years, ISPPD has emerged as the pre-eminent meeting for pneumococcal disease research and we’re proud to be a sponsor and active partner in this year’s meeting. Hope to see you there!

Orin Levine
Executive Director

NEW FUNDING FOR PNEUMOCOCCAL RESEARCH IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Baltimore, MD, April 15 - Today GAVI's PneumoADIP launched an innovative small grants program to fund activities to accelerate pneumococcal vaccine introduction in low and middle income countries. This program will support research and other activities to increase knowledge about pneumococcal diseases, such as pneumonia and meningitis, and their prevention by vaccination. The program is unique in its emphasis on supporting activities of local investigators in low or middle income countries.

"Pneumococcal disease is serious, common and preventable by vaccination." says Dr. Orin Levine, Executive Director of PneumoADIP "as more children die each year from pneumonia than from any other infectious disease - even more than from malaria or AIDS." According to the World Health Organization (WHO), pneumococcal pneumonia and meningitis are responsible for between 800 000 and one million child deaths each year, "That makes pneumococcal disease as big a childhood killer as malaria, but unlike malaria, it is preventable by vaccines available today", says Levine.

PneumoADIP's small grants program is designed to help individuals and institutions in developing countries increase knowledge on the potential health and economic impact of pneumococcal vaccination.

Appropriate projects for this initiative would include establishing the local health and/or economic burden of pneumococcal disease or collecting data on the most important strains circulating in an area. Grants can also support activities aimed at communicating local data to key decision-makers, assessing local attitudes and perceptions of pneumococcal disease and its consequences, or determining the economic rationale for vaccination.

"We are excited to provide this opportunity to support the many outstanding pneumococcal researchers in developing countries," says Maria Deloria Knoll Director of Research at PneumoADIP. "They frequently have great ideas but nowhere to go to fund them."

PNEUMOCOCCAL DISEASE SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM BEGINS IN BANGLADESH

Dhaka, Bangladesh, March 14 - Today guests helped the ICDDR, B staff celebrate the official beginning of the PneumoADIP-sponsored pneumococcal disease surveillance program in children in Bangladesh at a launching ceremony here. About twenty guests attended, including Dhaka Medical College and Hospital's Principal, both of the Heads of the Departments of Pediatrics and of Microbiology of Dhaka and Salimullah Medical College and Hospitals, as well as pediatricians and microbiologists from participating hospitals.

The program included a warm welcome by Dr. Aliya Naheed, Project Coordinator and an explanation of the surveillance project by Dr. Robert F. Breiman, Principal Investigator (PI) and team leader. Dr. Shams El Arifeen, the rural surveillance PI and Dr. Abdullah Brooks, PI for urban surveillance briefed the audience on the study design and the relevance of the project to hospital surveillance. Dr. Breiman spoke on behalf of Dr. Samir Saha, the hospital surveillance PI who was unable to attend the ceremony. Hospital surveillance participants planned to have a "sharing session" with junior participants unable to attend the ceremony modeled on a similar session held by the rural and urban surveillance participants with their junior staff earlier this year. The ceremony was hailed as a success and a positive beginning for the surveillance program.

This surveillance program in Bangladesh aims to enhance laboratory capacity, create awareness of the problem of pneumococcal disease and to prepare for introduction of a pneumococcal vaccine in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a country with many health problems competing for limited resources. While pneumonia is the leading cause of death for children < 5 years of age in Bangladesh and S. pneumoniae is likely the most common bacterial cause of severe pneumonia, prevention of S. pneumoniae infections is not widely established as a public health priority in Bangladesh. The project aims to provide the data on pneumococcal disease that will enable policymakers to weigh various options for utilizing limited resources.

There are two components of the project supported by PneumoADIP. The first is the creation of a network of 8 surveillance hospitals, serving both rural and urban populations throughout the country. The second component is community-based surveillance for childhood pneumococcal disease in two well-defined sites, one within an urban area and the other in a rural area.

UNIQUE PUBLIC-PRIVATE DEMAND FORECASTING MEETING FOR VACCINES

Baltimore, MD, December 17, 2003 - PneumoADIP and the rotavirus ADIP held their first demand forecasting meeting today in order to address uncertainties associated with the development of demand estimates for the pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines. Attendees included representatives from all sectors involved in vaccine finance and supply. Participants hailed from WHO, UNICEF, PAHO, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, consulting firms, USAID, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Aventis, emerging market manufacturers, and the Vaccine Fund.

The lack of demand forecasting information is a significant barrier to early adoption and use of new vaccines in developing countries. Meeting objectives were 1) to clarify demand forecasting priorities, needs and challenges; 2) to identify collaboration opportunities on specific forecasting activities and 3) to develop concrete action plans for the specific activities identified during the meeting.

Participants identified several challenges that must be addressed in order to successfully complete this demand forecasting. They include the diversity of vaccine-eligible countries; uncertain uptake of new vaccines by countries; and, most importantly, the difficulty in determining a country's willingness and ability to pay.

Meeting contributors developed a plan of action to go forward from the meeting. By June 2004, the ADIPs are expected to update all conference participants on the progress of the demand forecasting model for the pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines.

PNEUMOADIP CO-SPONSORS LEADING INTERNATIONAL PNEUMOCOCCAL SYMPOSIUM IN HELSINKI, FINLAND

Helsinki, Finland, May 9-13 - PneumoADIP is proud to be an official sponsor of the upcoming fourth International Symposium on Pneumococci and Pneumococcal Diseases (ISPPD-4) to be held in Helsinki, Finland May 9th - 13th. On May 10th, the conference will include a dedicated session from 2pm-330pm highlighting the PneumoADIP's mission with an emphasis on PneumoADIP-funded researchers updating the field on the progress of their research.

Over the past 8 years, the ISPPD has emerged as the most significant pneumococcal research meeting anywhere in the world. It is unique in the fact that it is the only international forum focusing entirely on the study of S. pneumoniae and pneumococcal disease. It brings together pneumococcal researchers from around the world to discuss the latest scientific findings and ideas in this area of research. ISPPD-4 is open to everyone interested in any aspect of pneumococci research, and especially welcomes individuals from Eastern Europe and developing countries. The conference program will cover a broad range of topics - from global epidemiology to genomics to the introduction of new vaccines. PneumoADIP is looking forward to being an integral part of this important gathering.