Sharing essential knowledge with health researchers and policy makers

Communities of practice

First Latin American Conference on Research and Innovation urges regional collaboration

7 May 2008

Joao Souza

Source: TropIKA

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Regional collaboration emerged as the cross-cutting theme among most of the working groups gathered at the First Latin American Conference on Research and Innovation for Health, which took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 15-18th April 2008. 106 participants represented 66 organizations from 24 countries worldwide.

The event was a collaboration involving the Ministry of Health of Brazil (Department of Science and Technology), together with the Council on Health Research for Development (COHRED), the Global Forum for Health Research, INSalud Mexico, the NicaSalud Network Federation, and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/World Health Organization (WHO).

The opening session included inaugural speeches from some of the authorities present, including Mirta Roses, Director of PAHO; Carel Ijsselmuiden, Director of COHRED; and Suzanne Jacob Serruya, COHRED board member and Director of Department of Science and Technology of Ministry of Health of Brazil.

Professor Carel Ijsselmuiden said Latin America could benefit from its various assets, such as language unity throughout the continent, the existence of a pool of centres of excellence and an inherent interest in South-South collaboration. The COHRED director also stressed the need to help widen the focus from ‘health research’ to ‘research for health, having in mind the next Global Forum to be held in Bamako, Mali in November 2008: ‘I hope this meeting will provide an opportunity to understand how ‘research for health’ can serve Latin America and, how the lessons could be applied elsewhere with all those present in Bamako’.

Professor Stephen Matlin, Director of the Global Forum for Health Research highlighted some of the main challenges still faced by Latin America in order to reach the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) in 2015 – and the implications for research and innovation for health in the region. He reminded delegates that in 2008 we are half way towards the MDG deadline, although, on current trends, most countries are still off track to meet most of the goals. The Global Forum Director pointed out that world leaders, gathered in Davos, Switzerland in January 2008, had declared a ‘development emergency’ and issued an ‘MDG Call to Action’.

In his presentation, Professor Matlin pointed out that malnutrition could be considered ‘the forgotten MDG’ due to the limited attention and investment it has received so far. He cited figures revealing that malnutrition is the underlying cause of at least 3.5 million deaths annually and accounts for 35 percent of the disease burden of children under age five. Moreover, he argued, malnutrition lowers the immune system and undermines the individual’s ability to deal with adverse environmental hazards, in particular those associated with unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation – paving the way for the contracting serious infections.

Global Warning and its effects on infectious diseases was also an important topic for the Global Forum Director’s lecture: ‘Developing countries will need support with adaptation to climate change, which is vitally important for them given their greater vulnerability ... For poor countries, the best way to adapt is to develop – by diversifying their economies, strengthening infrastructure, developing health systems and curbing climate-sensitive diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea’.

A presentation from Dr Carlos Morel, director of Centre for Technological Development in Health (CDTS) of Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIocruz)was called ‘Innovation and Neglected Diseases – Challenges and Opportunities’. Dr Morel discussed the major types of health innovation, which he categorized as: ‘product-oriented’ (new vaccines, drugs, diagnostics, devices), ‘process-oriented’ (alternative ways to synthesize or administer a drug), ‘policy-oriented’ (national immunization days) and ‘strategy-oriented’ (TRIPS compulsory licenses, antiretrovirals).

Dr Morel also highlighted the existence of two different categories of infectious diseases: those occurring in both rich and poor countries, although with a substantial proportion of cases in the poor countries (tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS) and those overwhelmingly or exclusively incident in developing countries (African trypanosomiasis, Chagas disease, lymphatic filariasis, leprosy, leishmaniasis etc). He said that, for each of the main so-called ‘health failures’ common in developing countries – including resources gaps, lack of good governance and priorities, corruption – innovations could be developed in order to fill in the gaps. ‘Some good recent Brazilian examples of this have been the collaboration between public and private organisations, as the Fiocruz-Genzyme R&D Agreement on neglected diseases and some partnerships for the development of new products like the AS/MQ (Artesunate/mefloquine) single-dose anti-malarial treatment from DNDi and Fiocruz.’