Infectious Disease

Olukemi Amodu, Mofeyisara Omobowale and Folakemi Amodu of the University of Ibadan College of Medicine in Nigeria will develop a three-part intervention to provide more convenient and accessible vaccinations for children of working mothers to increase the timeliness and completion of childhood vaccinations. Despite education campaigns, the demand for childhood vaccination in Nigeria is low, partly because working mothers have limited time to attend vaccination clinics.

Joseph Tucker of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom will hold a national crowdsourcing contest to develop a social media-based intervention to improve confidence in childhood vaccines and boost coverage in China. Expert-driven strategies have been launched to promote vaccination coverage in China, but have had limited effect. As an alternative approach, they will apply crowdsourcing to tap into the knowledge of individuals to design a more effective, online intervention.

Chijioke Kaduru of Corona Management Systems in Nigeria will use a human-centered approach to develop a community theater production that showcases real stories to educate caregivers on the value of vaccinations and increase childhood vaccine coverage. Almost half of caregivers in Nigeria lack awareness of the value of vaccines, which has increased the incidence of childhood diseases.

Dilip Abraham of Christian Medical College in India will analyze water samples from peri-urban and rural areas in India to study whether and how the typhoid fever-causing bacterium S. Typhi survives by living inside the common amoebae, Acanthamoeba. Acanthamoeba spp. are known to internalize S. Typhi, and may provide an intracellular environmental niche and extend survival of the bacteria. They will collect samples from drinking water sources and sewage lines in peri-urban and rural sites in Southern India.

Denise Monack of Stanford University in the U.S. will use a genetic approach to identify the molecular mechanisms that enable the typhoid fever-causing bacterium S. Typhi to survive in aquatic environments and to rapidly adapt to transmission to humans. Annually, S. Typhi causes over 20 million infections and 200,000 deaths, mostly among populations that lack access to clean drinking water. Understanding how S. Typhi persists in water and then quickly adapts to its human host is critical for controlling transmission.

Tovi Lehmann of the National Institute of Health in the U.S. will establish cross-country networks of aerial sampling stations in Africa to monitor windborne movement of insects and pests, and evaluate risks to public health, food safety, and ecosystem stability. Vector-borne disease is among Africa's top health priorities, and control of the insect vectors is the primary target for prevention. They will use a unique aerial sampling program to collect airborne insects across Mali and Ghana, and identify insects and pathogens within them by molecular analysis.

Fredros Okumu of the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania will develop technology to evaluate mosquito control interventions using a combination of artificial intelligence, infrared spectroscopy, and entomology. Malaria caused over 400,000 deaths in 2017, the majority in the developing world, and an effective way to control the disease is to target the mosquitoes that transmit it. Current tools cannot precisely measure mosquito age or life-expectancy, and are therefore unable to predict the impact of mosquito control interventions.

Andrew Seal of the Institute for Global Health and Development in the United Kingdom will test whether traditional female social groups in Somalia can adopt a participatory learning and action (PLA) approach to improve vaccine knowledge and coverage in humanitarian settings. Vaccine-preventable diseases are prevalent in Somalia; measles is the leading cause of death in children under five, yet less than 40% of children are immunized. This is due in part to lack of knowledge about the benefits of vaccination.

Shannon McMahon of the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health in Germany and Mark Donal Reñosa of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in the Philippines will create and test an intervention based on narrative and imagery to re-establish trust in vaccinations in Western Visayas, Philippines. Confidence in the safety of vaccines has recently dropped in the Philippines, exacerbated by controversy with a dengue vaccine in 2017. The country is now facing a measles outbreak, with a 3000% increase in cases in some areas.

Pietro Alano of the Instituto Superiore de Sanità in Italy will develop a biochip that mimics the midgut of the Anopheles mosquito and can be used to more easily and quickly test candidate anti-malarial compounds for blocking transmission of the causative Plasmodium parasite. Malaria is a potentially fatal infection caused by parasites transmitted between humans through the bites of infected mosquitoes. When a mosquito bites an infected person, immature Plasmodium gametocytes enter the mosquito and transform into an invasive ookinete stage in its midgut.