Infectious Disease

Mohlopheni Marakalala of the Africa Health Research Institute in South Africa and Eric Rubin of the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in the U.S. will use a genetic screening tool, Tn-seq, to identify the specific bacterial genes protecting Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) from immune destruction that could be used to develop new therapeutic approaches to fight tuberculosis, which causes over 1.5 million deaths annually. BCG is the only approved tuberculosis vaccine, but its effect is limited, particularly in adults.

Justin Lessler of the International Vaccine Access Center, Baltimore of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in the U.S. and Anthony Ahumibe of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control in Nigeria will launch a West African disease surveillance network for cholera to leverage local pathogen genome sequencing efforts for disease control and ultimately elimination.

Lemu Golassa of Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and Laurent Dembele of University of Science, Techniques and Technology of Bamako in Mali will analyze the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium vivax to identify molecules that enable it to transform into a dormant hypnozoite form in the liver, which is thought to be the key obstacle to malaria elimination. In many regions, P.

Lyle McKinnon of the University of Manitoba in Canada and Nicola Mulder of the University of Cape Town in South Africa will study the cause of bacterial vaginosis, which is linked to reproductive health complications and increased risk of HIV, to help identify new treatments. Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is characterized by harmful vaginal populations of anaerobic bacteria, often recurs, and is more common in Black and Latina women, suggesting that there could be a genetic component involved.

Zaza Ndhlovu of the Africa Health Research Institute in South Africa and Fekadu Tafesse of Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) will identify the molecular mechanisms enabling HIV to survive in humans to help develop new therapies to fully eradicate the disease. Potent antiretroviral therapies have rendered HIV a manageable chronic disease, but it is still incurable. Needing daily medication over a lifetime makes this approach ultimately expensive and also challenging to maintain in low-resource settings.

Clare Wenham of the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom and colleagues will study whether considering gender in the design and operation of mosquito-control programs can help them to sustainably eliminate vector-borne diseases such as Zika. Brazil has eliminated disease-causing mosquitoes several times, but they keep returning. Data from Africa have shown that malaria control programs purposefully involving women have longer-lasting effects, which may translate to other countries and for other diseases.

For the past seven years, the sound of terror for Syrian civilians has been the distant humming of a plane or helicopter followed by bombs raining down from the sky. Airstrikes in Syria have killed at least 80,000 civilians, injured more than 375,000, and killed hundreds of aid workers. Hala provides life-saving information to this vulnerable population via its early warning system, Sentry, and utilizes its data to aid accountability efforts for violations of International Humanitarian Law.

Millions of people in the most vulnerable, conflict-affected places are still missing from all publicly available maps, with the places they live appearing as single points without names. Provision of targeted preventive or faster curative interventions are impossible without knowing precise origins of a patient, where refugees/IDPs have sheltered, and locations of/gaps in basic services. Humanitarians lack this basic data essential for time-critical prioritization decisions that can save lives.

Globally, mobile populations, such as long-distance truck drivers and female sex workers are exposed to numerous health risks due to risk factors such as risky sexual behaviours, low risk perception and poor access to health services. Mobility is an important factor that impacts health vulnerability. Beyond the reach of traditional health systems and away from home for extended periods, mobile populations are often vulnerable to illness and more likely to take health risks.

The low detection and absence of timely treatment of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) due to geographical, and economic barriers and the lack of supplies in the health units, puts at risk the health of women and adolescents during pregnancy and childbirth, endangering the health of the newborn. STI detection and treatment are not delivered by the public health system. Only private health suppliers provide the service but costs are too high and just in the main cities of Honduras.