Our friends at PATH are on an amazing mission to bring a new meningitis vaccine to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Follow their stories on the ONE Blog as the journey unfolds.
In Emmanual Ouisnoma’s village — Korsimoro, Burkina Faso — people know that epidemic meningitis is a disease that kills. And that’s not all, says Ouisnoma, a long-time health center volunteer who spoke with me yesterday about the effect of meningitis in his village. They know that a vaccine that can protect against meningitis for 10 years or more is “something really special.”
Our friends at PATH are on an amazing mission to bring a new meningitis vaccine to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Follow their stories on the ONE Blog as the journey unfolds.
Vaccine arrival in Burkina Faso in preparation for MenAfriVac launch. Photo credit: WHO
On Monday morning, I’ll wake up in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and join the crowds of people moving toward the Place de la Nation in the center of town. As the sun rises high and hot in the West African sky, we’ll stand together in the rose-colored dust of the plaza and watch musicians and dancers perform. A few dignitaries, including the nation’s president and the head of the World Health Organization, will speak. Then, the children and young adults of Ouagadougou will form a line, bare their shoulders and receive a dose of a vaccine with the potential to end epidemic meningitis in Africa.
The first mass vaccination campaigns with MenAfriVac™ will have begun. By early next year, some 20 million people throughout Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger will have received the vaccine, and will be protected from a disease that has killed or disabled hundreds of thousands in their homelands.
D.C.’s institutions are constantly bursting at the seams with briefings, panels and meetings to help ensure that as a development community, we’re thinking ahead to the next ideas and challenges — not just rehashing old debates (like we’re often prone to do). Particularly in the last few weeks, there’s been a buzz around innovation — a catchall term gaining particular popularity with the Obama Administration — and I was able to hear about many exciting ways in which both government and non-government actors are pressing to innovate in their sectors:
Mobile phone technology in Africa was one of the major topics of discussion at the mHealth Summit this week. In this photo, a man at the Makola Market in Ghana writes out a text on his phone.
Water. We all underestimate its importance. It’s so readily available in the developed world that we think of it almost like air. But polluted air often causes disease and illness. The same is the case for water. Billions of people across the world lack access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. One out of every five people does not have safe water to drink, and nearly one out of every two people does not have access to a decent toilet. Children are the most affected by these circumstances.
I witnessed this every day in my medical practice in Nigeria. As a physician in my community, I would see children suffering from varying degrees of dehydration, diarrheal disease, malaria, malnutrition—all kinds of illness. I would see the same families return to the clinic week after week. At that time, in the 1970s, it was very common to prescribe supplemental foods, such as formula, to help with recovery. But unless the formula was mixed with safe drinking water, the children remained sick.
Mothers would feed their children this supplemental formula, but they didn’t sanitize their equipment or boil their water. That water was often contaminated with pathogens and disease. No wonder there were so many cases of diarrheal disease, so many cases of infant mortality. It was a vicious cycle.
At PATH, we work all over the world in places of poverty. In these places, sanitation and water supply are comingled. When you don’t have running water, it’s very likely that you also won’t have sufficient garbage collection or human waste disposal. And because of the scarcity of water supply, families must store water at home. PATH has traditionally focused on developing and improving household water treatment and safe storage products, because if you can get the water clean, then you reduce the issues that arise from poor sanitation and water.
We also understand the need to enhance community-level water supplies and improve disposal and sanitation to keep disease away from the water supply. PATH believes in an integrated approach that combines these preventative measures with treatment to address diarrheal disease and other illnesses. This approach encourages country leaders to access all the tools at their disposal.
With the effects of global warming and changes in water patterns and droughts due to human activities, the world is more likely to fight over water resources in the future than anything else. There is no question that we’re in a precarious situation going forward. Availability of safe drinking water, especially for young children, will become increasingly important.
Solutions exist today, but a lot needs to be done in order to bring these solutions to the people who need them most. Many water and sanitation services in developing countries are subsidized, but they need to be made a priority so that everyone can afford them. In addition, health groups and water and sanitation groups need to work together to overcome traditional barriers. In the past, sectoral divides have led to missed opportunities to join forces to promote a common message: water and sanitation interventions are critical to human health, especially children’s health.
That’s why PATH is working together with a coalition of nearly 30 groups from the water, sanitation, hygiene, and health sectors to raise awareness about this crisis, on World Water Day and beyond. We need to encourage donors, policymakers, and advocates to support both simple, existing interventions and the development of new technologies so that everyone has access to safe water.
To help us spread the word, please view this video below and share it with your family and friends.
-Ayo Ajayi, vice president of Field Programs, PATH
Check out this guest post from John Wecker, Director, Vaccine Access and Delivery at PATH:
Last June, the World Health Organization (WHO) made a recommendation to include rotavirus vaccines in all national immunization schedules. This was welcome news, as rotavirus is the most common cause of diarrhea-related global deaths in children less than five years old. But in order to turn welcome news into good news, we need to get these vaccines to the parts of the world that can least afford them.
First-of-its-kind data released this week in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) presents vital evidence from Africa and Mexico that demonstrates the potential for rotavirus vaccines. These studies clearly show that rotavirus vaccines can save young lives and they underscore the need for their immediate inclusion in national immunization programs across the world, particularly in those where diarrhea is a leading cause of childhood deaths.
Take Mexico, for example. During the annual rotavirus season between December and May, almost 800 infants died from severe diarrhea. Despite efforts to improve sanitation, increase the use of oral rehydration therapy (ORT), and promote exclusive breastfeeding, rotavirus continued to kill children. Then, in 2006, the government introduced a vaccine to prevent the disease. Within two years, diarrheal deaths among children less than two dropped by more than 65 percent.
In Africa—where the majority of diarrhea hospitalizations and nearly half of all rotavirus deaths occur—the vaccines hold even greater promise. The new NEJM data showed that the use of rotavirus vaccines significantly reduced severe rotavirus in African infants—preventing more than 60 percent of life-threatening infections. Now we must ensure that all African children—indeed all of the world’s children—receive this dose of prevention as soon as possible.
The clock is ticking toward the 2015 Millennium Development Goals—the target date for countries rich and poor alike to do their part in reducing child deaths worldwide. Vaccines can be costly. Fortunately, the GAVI Alliance has pledged to support rotavirus vaccine introduction in at least 44 low-income countries by 2015. This could have a tremendous impact on childhood mortality, but GAVI won’t be able to do it alone. It will take international donors, national governments, policymakers, and the larger global health community working together. And, there are some who can and should be doing more. Bill Gates said it himself in his recent annual letter.
Vaccination against rotavirus is of vital importance. But to defeat diarrheal disease, the vaccines must be part of a package, including the use of cost-effective, available interventions, such as oral rehydration therapy and zinc, as well as clean water, proper sanitation, and nutrition.
Today we are witnessing the real-world impact of rotavirus vaccines, and we can’t afford to lose momentum now. Let’s take the impact we’ve seen in Mexico and expand it worldwide. Let’s deploy the tools and strategies that already exist. Let’s fulfill our global responsibility to all of the world’s children. Or, as my colleague Samba Sow, a Malian doctor, says in our new rotavirus vaccine video below, “Let’s do it!”
You can help us do it. Spread the word and encourage others to recognize that diarrheal disease must be a global health priority. And share our video within your own communities!
-John Wecker, Director, Vaccine Access and Delivery, PATH
This great blog post comes to us from Dr. Juan José Amador, Director of Health Systems and Technology in Nicaragua at PATH
During my childhood in Nicaragua, I used to see a shocking sight: Groups of people carrying child-size coffins through the streets toward the cemetery. Families-usually the poorest in my community-mourning the deaths of their youngest members. Almost always, diarrheal disease was the cause.
Back then, these funeral processions were common. Diarrhea was a lethal epidemic, most often striking babies before they reached their first birthdays. We had few resources and little information to stop it.
When I became a doctor, we didn’t think that our country could overcome the disease. Three years ago, however, things began to change.
With PATH’s partnership, Nicaragua began vaccinating newborn babies against rotavirus, the most common cause of severe diarrheal disease, and helping families understand how better hygiene reduces risk. PATH partnered with health workers to introduce new saline solutions and other remedies for keeping young bodies hydrated and healthy.
And it’s working. We’ve cut the number of children who die from diarrhea in half. Hospital diarrhea wards are now empty, thanks to lifesaving rotavirus vaccine and other simple interventions:
Read Wilson’s story here, and check out the slide show here.
My hope for Nicaragua is a generation of healthy children who can learn better, smile bigger, and grow up strong-without the threat of death from diarrhea. Many years ago, we didn’t believe this was possible. But in a few short years, we have changed the history of my country.
On September 21, PATH will receive the 2009 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize. The $1.5 million prize is the world’s largest humanitarian award and recognizes a nonprofit organization that is making exemplary and extraordinary contributions toward alleviating human suffering. We are truly excited and humbled to receive the award and to join an esteemed list of Hilton Prize laureates.
We also recognize that our accomplishments depend on the people in the developing world who are using PATH’s technologies to bring health within reach for everyone.
Consider the experience of Nurse Emily, who works at Vihiga District Hospital in Kenya. Nearly every day she sends pregnant women home with a dose of nevirapine syrup in case they can’t make the journey back to the hospital to give birth. The women are HIV positive, and the syrup can protect their babies from getting the virus during birth.
Health workers used to struggle to find ways to keep the medicine safe as women carried it home and stored it. Then PATH developed a sealable foil pouch that keeps the medicine clean and protected. Now, as Emily hands the simple pouch to expectant mothers, she sees new hope for the lives of children in her community.
With the Hilton Prize, we plan to bring even more optimism to communities like Emily’s. We’ll use the Prize funds as innovation capital to support new initiatives in areas we’ve identified as critical to PATH’s mission: accelerating innovation in product development and introduction; bringing to scale essential health solutions and programs; and expanding our field presence, especially in Africa.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter and visit our website, www.path.org, to learn about the world’s most pressing health needs and to watch our progress as we continue to find solutions for health and hope.
-Scott Jackson, Vice-President of External Relations at PATH, an international nonprofit organization that creates sustainable, culturally relevant solutions, enabling communities worldwide to break longstanding cycles of poor health. By collaborating with diverse public- and private-sector partners, PATH helps provide appropriate health technologies and vital strategies that change the way people think and act. PATH’s work improves global health and well-being. For more information, please visit www.path.org.
Photo caption: PATH President Chris Elias accepting the award from Steven Hilton with Bill Gates, Sr. looking on.
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On September 21, PATH will receive the 2009 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize. The $1.5 million prize is the world’s largest humanitarian award and recognizes a nonprofit organization that is making exemplary and extraordinary contributions toward alleviating human suffering. We are truly excited and humbled to receive the award and to join an esteemed list of Hilton Prize laureates. 
