Geneva , Switzerland – May 16, 2005. Bill Gates spoke at the 58th World Health Assembly urging governments, researchers, and the private sector to take collective action to discover and deliver safe, affordable, lifesaving interventions for diseases that overwhelm people living in developing countries. Gates asserted his Foundation’s priority to fund vaccine research, citing The Gambia pneumococcal conjugate vaccine trial as an example of current scientific breakthroughs and to illustrate the enormous impact that new vaccines and drugs promise for saving lives. Finally, Gates cited GAVI’s innovative approach as a successful model for creating viable markets for delivering vaccines and drugs to the people living in developing countries.

GAVI’s PneumoADIP is pleased to announce the third round of recipients of our Small Grants Program awards. The very high quality of project proposals led us to double the number of funded projects this time. Congratulations to the successful candidates!

All submitted applications were reviewed first internally and then externally for scientific merit, methodological soundness, and agreement with PneumoADIP’s mission – to improve child survival and health by accelerating the evaluation of and access to new, lifesaving pneumococcal vaccines for the world's children.

Dhaka, Bangladesh. Follow-up of pneumococcal meningitis cases to determine long-term impact. Dhaka Shishu (Children) Hospital, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and partners will conduct a follow-up study of meningitis cases to study the short and long term sequelae meningitis survivors face.

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Streptococcus pneumoniae, burden of disease and seroprevalence in children under 5 in Santo Domingo . In the nation’s capital city, Robert Reid Cabral Children’s Hospital, University of Miami and partners will establish a surveillance network of public and private hospitals in order to assess the incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease in children <5 years of age. Investigators will also track serotype distribution and antimicrobial resistance of S. pneumoniae.

Viti Levu, Fiji. Prospective meningitis burden of disease study and rapid assessment of neurological outcomes in children in Fiji: part 2, extension of laboratory work. The previous Small Grants recipient, collaboration of Fiji Pneumococcal Project (FiPP) with the University of Melbourne, the Fiji Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Fiji School of Medicine (FSM) will continue its pneumococcal meningitis disease burden study. This arm of the project will follow-up children <5 years of age to determine the short and long term morbidity and mortality of meningitis survivors.

Guatemala City, Guatemala. Incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease in children hospitalized in Guatemala City. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and University of Guatemala City will integrate surveillance for invasive pneumococcal disease into an existing surveillance network for H. Influenzae type b in the nation’s capital.

Vellore, India. Risk Factors and Consequences of S. pneumoniae colonization in the nasopharynx of infants in Vellore, India. In an urban center in the South Indian province of Tamil Nadu, Christian Medical College will conduct a longitudinal study to determine local risk factors for S. pneumoniae colonization in infants as well as the morbidity and development consequences of S. pneumoniae colonization in infants.

Amman, Jordon. Study on serotypes and sensitivity pattern of pneumococcal isolates leading to invasive disease in tertiary care centers in Jordan. Jordan University School of Medicine, Jordan University Hospital and the Islamic Hospital will conduct a pilot surveillance study of invasive pneumococcal disease in children and adults who present at the hospitals, two of the largest in the nation.

Kilifi, Kenya. Long-term survival and disability in children who survived Pneumococcal meningitis treated in a district hospital in Kenya . In the rural coastal district of Kilifi, the Kenya Medical Research Institute and Kilifi District Hospital will conduct a retrospective analysis of meningitis cases in order to determine the survival outcome and assess neurological sequelae among survivors.

Nairobi, Kenya. Presenting the case for improved childhood vaccination in Kenya. The Kenya Pediatric Association will develop and distribute an evidence-based consensus statement on the value of new vaccines in order to help Kenyan health professionals make better informed decisions on new vaccines for their patients.

Lebanon. Establishing a pilot surveillance program for pneumococcal infections in Lebanon. American University of Beirut and partners will establish a pneumococcal pilot surveillance program in six major hospitals in both rural and urban areas of Lebanon to serve as a foundation for expanding surveillance networks throughout the country.

Manhiça, Mozambique. Surveillance of bacterial meningitis among children <15 years of age hospitalized in the Manhiça Hospital, Mozambique. In a rural area in southern Mozambique, Manhiça Hospital will establish a comprehensive hospital-based surveillance for bacterial meningitis in order to improve diagnosis in admitted children <15 years of age.

Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Serotypes and antibiotic sensitivities of invasive Streptococcus pneumoniae in Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. In the southwest state of Osun, the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex (OAUTHC) will setup a surveillance at this semi-urban teaching hospital to gather local baseline data for invasive pneumococcal disease in children <15 years of age.

South Africa. Differences in blood culturing practices in rural and urban areas of South Africa. Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit (RMPRU) and Medical Research Council (MRC)/National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD)/University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) will collect data on regional differences in blood culturing practices to aid in the interpretation of existing surveillance data on invasive pneumococcal disease at the national-level.

Moshi, Tanzania. The serotype distribution of carriage and invasive pneumococcal isolates from children in northern Tanzania. In a rural town in northern Tanzania, researchers from Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College, Tumaini University and Royal Free & University College Medical School will complete serotyping of the carriage isolates from their previous longitudinal study while establishing a routine blood culture facility for pneumococcal disease surveillance.

Khanh Hoa Province, Viet Nam. Socio-Behavioral Study and Health-Care Utilization Survey of Community-Acquired Pneumonia, Meningitis and Sepsis in Children of an Urban and Rural Community in VietNam . In the southern province of Khanh Hoa, the Khanh Hoa Health Service will describe and compare health-care seeking and health-care utilization trends in rural and urban families with children <5 years of age.

Khanh Hoa Province, Viet Nam. Cost-of-illness associated with invasive pneumococcal diseases in children, Khanh Hoa Province, Viet Nam. The Khanh Hoa Provincial Public Health Service will estimate an array of treatment costs for invasive pneumococcal diseases, including direct costs of hospitalization, diagnosis, and treatment, and indirect and out-of-pocket costs.

New Jersey, USA – April 21, 2005. According to a recent Wyeth press release detailing their annual Meeting of Stockholders, Robert Essner, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, said “Wyeth researchers are continuing to work on new versions of Prevnar which expand its usefulness globally for both children and adults, and we are working with international agencies to help provide access to Prevnar in the developing world.” Essner’s public announcement is extraordinary. This marks the first time any industry executive has publicly asserted a company’s commitment to making pneumococcal vaccines available to people in developing countries – where 90% of pneumococcal pneumonia deaths in children occur.

The Center for a Global Development (CGD), an independent think-tank based in Washington, DC, held a press conference to launch their groundbreaking report, “Making Markets for Vaccines: Ideas to Action.” Authors Ruth Levine and colleagues propose an innovative approach to vaccine financing that they call advance purchase commitments. Advance purchase commitments are designed to engage the industry, donors, and developing countries to build sustainable vaccine markets for diseases that would otherwise remain grossly neglected without such global public-private partnerships. The innovation of the advance purchase commitment is that it delineates a legal and binding process – the advance purchase contract – that serves as the ground work for collaboration throughout all the stages from vaccine research and development to routine immunization. The authors propose viable applications of this mechanism for both early- and late-stage vaccines for use in developing countries. To learn more about their proposal, and to read the full report, click here.

The May/June 2005 issue of Health Affairs Journal features the theme, “The Vaccine Enterprise.” This is a fantastic resource pulling together leading experts to talk about everything vaccine-related: vaccine markets, vaccine manufacturing, vaccine politics, vaccine history and future, vaccine financing, and more.

The 23rd annual meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases (ESPID) will be held May 18-20 in Valencia , Spain. There is a scientific program that features PCV, “Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine: The Impact on Invasive Pneumococcal Disease in Children.” Also stay tuned for the exciting results of GSK’s Phase III PCV trial in the Czech Republic.