Vaccine Diplomacy

[Guest guest]

" a newer and possibly more frightening HIV/AIDS epidemic has started to

roll through densely populated areas of the Indian subcontinent and China. "

I wonder why.........hmmm........could it be all the vaccines????????

Sheri

*******

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_mayjune_2001/hotezprint.html

Vaccine Diplomacy (printer-friendly format)=20

Click here to return to the article.

The multinational effort to eliminate disease might not only save lives but

prevent conflict.=20

By J. Hotez=20

Vaccines are arguably one of humankind's greatest creations. Because of

vaccines' remarkable ability to halt great plagues and eliminate disease,

few other peacetime inventions have had as much influence on human history.

Within the last 20 years alone, vaccines have eradicated smallpox, with

polio soon to follow. But inoculations that eliminate disease could have an

impact well beyond improving global health. Throughout the developing

world, vaccines could also be transformed into powerful agents of conflict

resolution.=20

Vaccine diplomacy is nearly as old as vaccines themselves. In 1798, British

doctor Jenner published his research on the use of the cowpox

(vaccinia) virus to vaccinate (from the Latin word for cow) against the

human smallpox virus. By 1800, the Jenner smallpox vaccine was used widely

in England and shipped across the channel to France. Within a decade,

Napoleon decreed that vaccine departments should be established in all of

the major cities of the French empire. And in 1811 Jenner was elected as a

foreign member of the Institute of France. Strikingly, Jenner's

participation in the use and development of the smallpox vaccine in France

occurred during a time of almost continuous war between England and France.

But, as Jenner himself observed in a letter to the National Institute of

France, " The sciences are never at war. " =20

Similarly, in the early 1950s, polio epidemics raged on both sides of the

Iron Curtain. The dreadful nature of these epidemics (they struck young

children particularly hard) could have been the deciding factor in

compelling the Soviets to break their Cold War silence in 1956 when they

realized, in the words of medical historian Saul Benison, " they could no

longer afford the comfort and sustenance that ideology provided. " Soviet

virologists subsequently collaborated with U.S. researcher Albert Sabin to

develop a " live " polio vaccine that improved upon the one developed by

Jonas Salk in 1954. To this day, many Americans are astonished to learn

that the Sabin polio vaccine was introduced into the United States only

after its safety and efficacy had first been tested in millions of Soviet

children.

The legacy of Cold War vaccine diplomacy is now felt in polio-endemic

regions of Africa and Central Asia where, during the last five years, the

United Nations Children's Fund and the World Health Organization have

negotiated cease-fires in order to conduct successful polio immunization

campaigns. Through the efforts of United Nations agencies, mass

vaccinations during so-called days of tranquility have been brokered every

year in Afghanistan since 1993. In Sudan, former U.S. President Jimmy

helped negotiate a six-month cease-fire in 1995 to reduce the

incidence of drancunculiasis, a parasitic disease caused by the guinea

worm. (The " guinea worm cease-fire " was, at that time, the longest

cease-fire in the history of the Sudanese civil conflict.) National

immunization days also temporarily halted hostilities in Sierra Leone.

Today, the part of the world most in need of both vaccines and diplomacy is

South Asia. Three years ago, the Indian government renewed underground

nuclear testing in part because of a perceived threat from China. But India

and China share more than a disputed border and expanding nuclear

capabilities: These two nations, which together comprise approximately 40

percent of the world's population, also share one of the highest rates of

tropical infectious diseases. Illnesses caused by animal parasites living

in the human intestine are especially endemic to the region. Diagnostic

surveys conducted by the Chinese Ministry of Health between 1988 and 1992

revealed more than 500 million cases of ascariasis (an infection caused by

a large intestinal roundworm), 212 million cases of whipworm infection, and

194 million cases of hookworm infection. India is equally plagued by these

parasites, which cause devastating problems among both children and adults,

especially pregnant women.=20

The technology exists to make a vaccine to control worms in India and

China, but the resources available for this task are pathetically meager.

Despite the enormous burdens of disease, both nations still spend much of

their scientific budget on the physical and mathematical sciences necessary

to develop nuclear arsenals. If these nations diverted even one tenth of

their nuclear-weapons budgets to vaccine research, diseases like hookworm

might be eradicated in the 21st century. Now is the time to advocate a new

peacetime mission for the Chinese and Indian scientific communities=97to

shift their intellects and their resources to eradicating the infections

that currently trap their rural citizens in a perpetual cycle of poverty.

As Gandhi, the leader of the Congress Party (and daughter-in-law of

former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi), remarked, " science should be used for

removing poverty and backwardness in the country. " =20

A multilateral vaccine development program that focuses on tropical

infectious diseases highly endemic to South and East Asia might foster a

spirit of regional cooperation. Such a program would draw scientists and

government health officials from countries engaged in nuclear saber

rattling together for a common cause. Moreover, this effort could serve as

a model to cope with the next health crisis that will soon ravage the

region. Although much of the media coverage of HIV/AIDS has focused on

Africa, a newer and possibly more frightening HIV/AIDS epidemic has started

to roll through densely populated areas of the Indian subcontinent and

China. Through government agencies and private foundations, developed

countries can commit critical resources to accelerate the development of

new vaccines. Along the way, we might acquire an immunity to war.=20

=20

J. Hotez is chair of the Department of Microbiology and Tropical

Medicine at Washington University and a senior fellow of the Albert

B. Sabin Vaccine Institute, where he is principal investigator of the Human

Hookworm Vaccine Initiative.=20

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Copyright 2001 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace=20

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Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA=09

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & UK

530-740-0561 Voicemail in US

http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm

" All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men ( &

women) do nothing " ...Edmund Burke=20

ANY INFO OBTAINED HERE NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE. THE=

=20

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