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WHO Meeting Brings Together Leading Experts to Discuss Burden of Pneumococcal Disease

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  • WHO Meeting Brings Together Leading Experts to Discuss Burden of Pneumococcal Disease

    My Comment - interesting focus don't you think???

    http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...4282375&EDATE=

    WHO Meeting Brings Together Leading Experts to Discuss Burden of Pneumococcal Disease

    COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, February 15 /PRNewswire/ --

    - Prevention of Child Deaths Remains an Asian Priority
    - Effective Surveillance is First Step to Eliminating Disease

    The need for an urgent and sustained effort to document the burden of
    pneumococcal disease formed the core of discussions amongst leading
    scientists attending a WHO meeting today. With pneumococcal disease estimated
    to be responsible for up to one million child deaths each year[1] - local
    efforts to measure the scale of the problem in Asia are essential in
    preventing unnecessary child deaths from Streptococcus pneumoniae - a
    bacterium that causes pneumonia and meningitis.

    Serious pneumococcal infections occur throughout life, but young children
    (especially those under 2 years old) and the elderly are at the highest risk
    for severe pneumococcal disease. Furthermore, over 90% of pneumococcal
    pneumonia deaths in children occur in developing countries, and pneumococcal
    meningitis kills or disables over 40% of the children who get the disease.
    "Effective surveillance of pneumococcal disease and its serotypes is
    needed to accurately map the magnitude of the problem and help evaluate the
    impact of available vaccines", commented Dr Thomas Cherian, Co-ordinator
    a.i., EPI+, Vaccines and Biologicals at WHO.

    Pneumococcal disease is a major global health problem, and of concern in
    Asia. For example, at the Lady Ridgeway Hospital (LRH) for Children in
    Colombo, Sri Lanka - one of the largest Children's hospitals in the region -
    794 pneumonia cases (32 deaths) and 295 meningitis cases (9 deaths) were
    reported in 2003[2]. Pneumococcal surveillance, initiated in 2005, indicates
    that a sizable proportion of these cases could be due to infections by
    Streptococcus pneumoniae.

    Dr. Nihal Abeysinghe, the Chief Epidemiologist of the Ministry of Health,
    is pleased that Sri Lanka is a part of the South Asian Pneumococcal Alliance
    (SAPNA) and that pneumococcal surveillance conducted in Sri Lanka is based on
    sound methodology with high standards of quality control. He also emphasised
    the value and the importance of technical and financial assistance by WHO and
    GAVI's PneumoADIP in supporting and sustaining effective pneumococcal
    surveillance activities in Sri Lanka.

    Dr. Sarath de Silva, the Consultant Paediatrician at the LRH said that
    the improved Microbiology Laboratory support now provides clinicians with the
    opportunity to identify pneumococci as a leading cause of meningitis and
    pneumonia in children. In 2005, Streptococcus pneumoniae were isolated from
    specimens from 3 meningitis patients and 9 pneumonia patients.
    Dr. Kumudu Karunarathne, the Consultant Microbiologist, also at the LRH,
    commented that a high level of resistant pneumococci to commonly used
    antibiotics was a very significant finding in 2005. The fact that over 90% of
    the Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates are resistant to penicillin is of
    greatest concern, and all clinicians in the country should be aware of this
    fact.

    Fortunately, new vaccines to prevent deadly pneumococcal infections are
    now available and widely used in many countries in North America and Europe.
    As Dr. Katharine O'Brien, Deputy Director for Surveillance and Research at
    GAVI's PneumoADIP explained: "with systematic surveillance in place and a
    coordinated effort to introduce pneumococcal vaccines we could save millions
    of children's lives and make a significant move towards meeting a key UN
    Millennium Development Goal of reducing child mortality by two thirds by
    2015".

    The Pneumococcal Surveillance Investigators meeting was sponsored by the
    World Health Organisation and GAVI's PneumoADIP[3] and brought together
    experts from a number of Asian countries including Bangladesh, India,
    Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Mongolia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet
    Nam.

    The importance placed on this meeting reflects the global community's
    increasing focus on pneumococcal disease, and the urgent need for a global
    solution. Only last week BBC World aired the second in a landmark series of
    programmes looking at pneumococcal disease and life-saving vaccines. The
    documentary took a close look at the burden of pneumococcal disease in India
    and Nepal, and the effort required to introduce a vaccine in developing
    countries.

    Notes to Editors

    Pneumococcal Disease

    Pneumococcal disease is an infection caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae.
    When these bacteria invade the lungs, they cause the most common kind of
    bacterial pneumonia and can then invade the bloodstream (bacteremia) and/or
    the tissues and fluids surrounding the brain and spinal cord (meningitis).

    According to WHO, pneumococcal pneumonia and meningitis are responsible
    for 800,000 to 1 million child deaths each year and more than 90 percent of
    pneumococcal pneumonia deaths in children occur in developing countries.
    Furthermore, approximately 500,000 children die each year from diarrhoeal
    disease caused by rotavirus, and another 2 million are hospitalized. Since
    rotavirus diarrhoea is a global infection, nearly every child in the world
    will suffer an episode of diarrhoea caused by rotavirus before 5 years of age.

    South Asian Pneumococcal Alliance (SAPNA)

    Sri Lanka became a member of the SAPNA in 2003 and started Laboratory
    based surveillance of pneumococcal infections in 2005 at the Lady Ridgeway
    Hospital for Children in Colombo. The Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of
    Health coordinates the surveillance activities. It plans to expand
    surveillance activities to cover the whole Colombo district.

    World Health Organisation (WHO)

    The World Health Organization is the United Nations specialized agency
    for health. It was established on 7 April 1948. WHO's objective, as set out
    in its Constitution, is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible
    level of health. Health is defined in WHO's Constitution as a state of
    complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of
    disease or infirmity.

    Pneumococcal Vaccines Accelerated Development and Introduction Plan
    (PneumoADIP)

    The goal of PneumoADIP is to shorten the time between the use of a new
    vaccine in industrialized countries and its introduction in developing
    countries by reducing demand uncertainty and achieving an affordable,
    sustainable supply of vaccines. This novel approach is funded by the Global
    Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) through its partner the Vaccine
    Fund. PneumoADIP is located at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
    Health. The mission of PneumoADIP is to improve child survival and health by
    accelerating the evaluation of and access to new life saving pneumococcal
    vaccines for the world's children. For more information, please visit:

    http://www.preventpneumo.org.

    GAVI Alliance

    The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (now the GAVI Alliance)
    was launched in 2000 to increase immunization rates and reverse widening
    global disparities in access to vaccines. Governments in industrialized and
    developing countries, UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank, non-governmental
    organizations, foundations, vaccine manufacturers, and public health and
    research institutions work together as partners in the Alliance, to achieve
    common immunization goals, in the recognition that only through a strong and
    united effort can much higher levels of support for global immunization be
    generated. Funds channeled through GAVI's financing arm, The GAVI Fund
    (formerly The Vaccine Fund), are used to help strengthen health and
    immunization services, accelerate access to selected vaccines and new vaccine
    technologies - especially vaccines that are new or under-used, and improve
    injection safety. In addition to substantial funding from the Bill & Melinda
    Gates Foundation, The Vaccine Fund has been financed by ten governments to
    date-Canada, Denmark, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway,
    Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States- as well as the European
    Union and private contributors.

    [1] World Health Organization. Pneumococcal vaccines. The Weekly
    Epidemiol Record 2003;14:110-9
    [2] Annual Health Bulletin, LRH, 2003
    [3] Pneumococcal Vaccines Accelerated Development and Introduction Plan
    (PneumoADIP) based at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA


    SOURCE GAVI's PneumoADIP
    Last edited by Extra; February 15, 2006, 11:28 PM. Reason: formatting only
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