|
|
Greetings!
The historic gathering of more than 20,000 AIDS advocates, researchers and policymakers is under way in Washington, DC.
If you're attending the conference, check out a documentary premier inspired by DGHI HIV research or join a global health meetup with Duke students and alumni. The premier begins tonight at 7pm.
Until next time,
Geelea Seaford and Everyone at DGHI
|
|
|
|
|
Let's Not Jeopardize 30 Years of AIDS Progress
 When AIDS caught the world unaware in the early 1980s, we were forced to respond to a complex emergency we didn't fully understand. Thirty years later, we have a much better understanding of the science behind the disease, and what is required to control and prevent it.
As chronicled in the latest issue of Health Affairs, much of this progress has been made - and the lives of millions of people saved - because of PEPFAR, the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The largest ever global investment in health by the United States government - and the largest ever made in HIV/AIDS by any one country - PEPFAR has provided treatment to 4 million people and care to 13 million more, mostly in the hardest-hit countries.
PEPFAR has recently set aggressive new goals. By 2013, PEPFAR aims to provide antiretroviral drugs to 6 million people in low- and middle-income countries, tripling the number who received them in the first five years of the program. This bold treatment goal falls short of an even higher goal to treat 15 million people overall by 2015, set by the UN General Assembly last year. PEPFAR also seeks to fund 4.7 million male circumcisions and provide antiretroviral therapy to 1.5 million HIV-infected pregnant women by 2013. We need to ask: Are we setting ambitious goals that we're not prepared to fund or meet? Are we setting up one of our country's greatest successes for failure?
|
Duke to Receive $139 Million Grant for HIV Vaccine
 A large federal grant awarded to Duke University will fund a highly focused program to discover how to induce the precise immune factors needed for effective vaccines against HIV.
Barton Haynes will be the Duke director of the seven-year grant for the Duke Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology-Immunogen Discovery (CHAVI-ID). Haynes previously led the original Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI) consortium, the grant for which just ended in June 2012. For its role in the new CHAVI-ID program, Duke will receive $19.9 million for the first year beginning this month, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). "We were privileged to have the CHAVI grant over the past seven years, and the work in this consortium helped us understand what needed to be done to make a successful AIDS vaccine," said Haynes, who is also director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute, the Frederic M. Hanes Professor of Medicine and Immunology, and a faculty member of the Duke Global Health Institute.
|
|
|
Signing Formalizes Duke-Fudan Global Health Partnership
A delegation led by Dr. Gui Yonghao, vice president of Fudan University and dean of the Shanghai Medical College in China, visited Duke University last week to formally establish the Duke-Fudan Global Health  Partnership.
Fudan University has one of the top schools of public health in China and in Asia. With the support of the National Institutes of Health, the China Medical Board and Chinese governmental funding agencies, it established the Fudan Center for Global Health Research and Training at the School of Public Health in 2010.
"Global health is critical to the future of China and the world," said Gui. "It requires interdisciplinary scholarship. We can achieve much more together than on our own. We hope this collaboration will have great success."
|
|
|
DGHI HIV Research Inspires Documentary
A new documentary on the HIV epidemic in the Deep South of the US drew its inspiration, in part, from the work of  DGHI faculty member Kathryn Whetten. Her book "You're the First One I've Told" humanizes the epidemic with gripping stories about people who are affected by HIV, which claims more lives in the South each year than in any other part of the US. The documentary premiers in Washington, DC July 24-25 in conjunction with the International AIDS Conference.
Lisa Biagiotti, the director of the documentary "deepsouth," put the sobering reality into context with Whetten's book. "Kate helped me expand the way I think about HIV-from trauma to diseases of poverty to social safety nets," said Biagiotti. "Her integrated approach examines the lifestyle and environmental risks of an infectious disease, and deepsouth strives to capture her approach. Kate's work and her book are provocative, substantive and compassionate."
|
|
|
Moi Students Visit Duke Through Global Health Twinning Program
DGHI welcomes Moi University public health graduate students Sherine Adipo and Chemutai Kenei to Durham  from Eldoret, Kenya. They are working collaboratively with Duke students on global health research as part of the Duke University/Moi University Comparative Health Research Twinning Program.
Developed and led by DGHI faculty member Wendy O'Meara, the program supports the pairing of Kenyan and US-based students to conduct research on one topic across two distinct settings-Kenya and North Carolina.
Adipo is working alongside Master of Science in Global Health student Nicole Georggi to compare the health of clergy across both settings. Kenei's research project with Duke Master of Science in Global Health student Alexandra Kyerematen explores the mental health barriers that could prevent women with HIV from seeking care.
|
|
|
DUSON Hosts Students from Wuhan University for Public Health Study Tour
From July 7 to August 11, 2012, Duke University School of Nursing (DUSON) is hosting five undergraduate and two graduate students from Wuhan University in China for an international study tour. The tour is part of a three-year  agreement signed by DUSON, the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI), and the School of Public Health at Wuhan University to improve and expand research and educational opportunities for students and faculty at Duke and Wuhan.
DUSON is providing the cultural immersion experience, which includes education in public and community health. Dr. Isaac Lipkus (DUSON) and Dr. Bei Wu (DUSON and DGHI) are conducting research mentorships with the graduate students.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Noteworthy
|
Duke-NUS Joins Singapore's First Trial of Anti-viral Medicine For Treatment of Dengue Fever
Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and researchers at the Program for Emerging Infectious Diseases at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School (Duke-NUS) will start a clinical trial using Celgosivir, a new medicine derived from the seeds of the Moreton Bay Chestnut tree, to determine its efficacy as a treatment for dengue fever. The trial is carried out under the STOP Dengue Translational Clinical Research Program.
Celgosivir is a safe medicine as it was previously tested in the United States, Canada, and Europe for other viral infections. It is an oral drug, similar to medicines used to treat other acute viral disease like flu or chicken pox.
"This trial will determine if Celgosivir can reduce the amount of virus, fever duration and pain in patients who receive the treatment early in the course of dengue fever. This approach is different from dengue vaccines, which cannot be used to treat a dengue patient when the illness has set in", said Dr Jenny Low, Principal Investigator of the study and Consultant, Department of Infectious Diseases, Singapore General Hospital.
|
|
|
Global Health Opportunities
Job Opportunities
Staff Assistant, DGHI
Upcoming Conferences
Global Healthcare Conference, Aug. 27-28, Singapore
GETHealth Summit, Oct. 2-3, New York City
APHA Annual Meeting, Oct. 27-31, San Francisco, CA
Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, Oct. 31-Nov. 3, Beijing, China
61st Annual ASTMH Conference, Nov. 11-15, Atlanta, GA
Faculty
Duke Africa Initiative Funding for Small Projects/Working Groups - due Aug. 1
DGHI Pilot Funding for Engineering and Global Health - due Aug. 3
DGHI Pilot Funding for Global Cancer Research - due Sept. 1
Burroughs Wellcome Fund Postdoc Fellowship in Tropical Infectious Diseases - due Sept. 5
|
|
|
| Received this as a forward? Sign up for future issues. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
