Devoted to defeating a silent killer

Feb 2nd, 2010 3:10 PM UTC
By ONE Partners

Check out this guest post from Ciro A. de Quadros, executive vice president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and co-chair of the Pneumococcal Awareness Council of Experts (PACE) in the wake of last week’s big announcement from the Gates Foundation—a pledge of $10 billion towards the research, development and delivery of vaccines.

With all eyes currently on vaccines following the Gates Foundation’s recent $10 billion commitment to immunizations, the Pneumococcal Awareness Council of Experts (PACE), a project of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, is pleased to recognize the work of a steadfast pioneer in this field: WHO’s Dr. Thomas Cherian.

Yesterday, Dr. Cherian received the PACE Global Leadership Award at the Global Immunization Meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. The award was in recognition of his tireless efforts to accelerate the development and delivery of pneumococcal vaccines. Pneumococcal disease is one of the least known but most deadly infectious diseases worldwide, causing meningitis, sepsis and most commonly, pneumonia. It takes the lives of more than 1.6 million people each year, more than half of them children under the age of five.

Over the course of a 25-year career that began at Christian Medical College in Tamil Nadu, India, Dr. Cherian has made significant contributions to the fight against pneumonia and pneumococcal diseases. His work includes helping to accelerate the development of pneumococcal vaccines, evaluating their efficacy against pneumonia, and informing the development of the WHO protocols that today guide treatment of pneumonia and other respiratory infections around the globe.

In 2009, Dr. Cherian was a member of the research team responsible for producing the first global study of pneumococcal disease burden in the last decade—and the only study of its kind to look at the burden of this disease at the country level, critical to efforts to protect children from pneumococcal disease.

Five years remain for countries rich and poor alike to reach Millennium Development Goal IV—a two-thirds reduction in child mortality. Pneumococcal disease prevention is key to making this goal a reality. At last, thanks to the hard work of leaders such as Dr. Cherian, governments, foundations and the vaccine industry have the information and tools to grasp the dramatic scope of this disease—and the scientific evidence to see which interventions work. Now it is up to us to urge our policymakers to take action against pneumococcal disease.

-Ciro A. de Quadros, executive vice president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and co-chair of the Pneumococcal Awareness Council of Experts (PACE)

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