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Research: H. influenzae type b8 August 2006 |
H. influenzae type b is one of the developing world's major childhood killers, responsible for half a million deaths and three million episodes of serious disease a year among children. Now, researchers at the Kenya Medical Research Institute–Wellcome Trust Research Programme (KEMRI-WT) have proven that vaccination programmes can be much more effective than previously thought, and are working with the Kenyan Ministry of Health to tackle the disease. The research is presented today in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The disease, known as Hib, causes meningitis and pneumonia in infants and young children and is responsible for five per cent of hospital deaths in Kilifi, Kenya. However, difficulties in diagnosing the disease, coupled with the cost of vaccination programmes, have meant that most governments in Africa have been reluctant to fund vaccination programmes.
Hib is detectable only by blood culture or CSF culture (cerebrospinal fluid, the clear fluid that circulates in the space surrounding the spinal cord), and such investigations are not routinely carried out in hospital laboratories in Africa.
Despite these difficulties, the Ministry of Health in Kenya introduced Hib vaccine into the routine childhood immunisation programme in 2001. Researchers in Kilifi have shown that this has reduced the incidence of Hib by 88 per cent among children under five. As a result, the Ministry of Health in Kenya has decided to sustain the vaccination programme originally funded by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization.
The research was led by the University of Oxford's Dr Anthony Scott, funded by a Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellowship in Clinical Tropical Medicine.
KEMRI-WT is one of the Wellcome Trust's Major Overseas Programmes, carrying out vital research on diseases that cause high levels of mortality in the tropics. Over the past five years, the Wellcome Trust has spent approximately 10 per cent of its funds supporting research and capacity building in developing and restructuring countries, and in 2005 spent £50 million on directly funded international grants.