Neglected infectious disease prevention - An Indian perspective, challenges and opportunities

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Monjori Mitra

Institute of Child Health, India

: J Clin Exp Oncol

Abstract

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Neglected diseases particularly infectious origin, needs greater political commitment to combat these diseases, hence has been recognized by many World Health Assembly resolutions and the UN Millennium Development Goals. Diseases such as diarrheal diseases, malaria, chikunguniya, typhoid, tuberculosis, and neglected tropical diseases are rife where poverty prevails. According to data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010, the collective burden of neglected diseases is 248 million disabilityadjusted life years (DALYs), and they caused 4 million deaths. Global immunization landscape is such that in the developing countries where 85% population lives and where the disease burden is 93%, the vaccine for these diseases are not developed. India loses close to 2 million lives a year due to vaccine preventable diseases. Vaccine coverage is also lowest in India. It was in this backdrop the scientific community in India planned to address the diseases like typhoid, rotavirus diarrhea and many in the pipe lines and developed the vaccine in close association with scientific bodies of USA. Today few Indian companies have successfully developed vaccines at a much affordable cost and as per WHO requirement satisfied all the qualification to address the children of many underdeveloped countries’ vaccination coverage. Quality vaccines at affordable prices have been the key to success, an apt example, which are typhoid vaccines and rotavirus vaccines. Today globally the WHO and UNESCO in association with GAVI, CaT, TYVAC, has decided to vaccinate children with the highly efficacious conjugate typhoid vaccine in developing countries to combat multidrug resistant typhoid fever.

Biography

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Monjori Mitra is an award winning pediatrician, academician, researcher, author, editor, clinical investigator and office bearer of Indian Academy of Pediatrics. She serves as associate professor of pediatric medicine in the esteemed Institute of Child Health, Kolkata. Her area of expertise is pediatrics vaccinology and nutrition. She carries a rich clinical experience of more than 20 years in pediatric medicine. She has served in the capacity of executive member of Indian Pediatric Society. She has been advisor to the editorial board of Indian Journal of Practical Pediatrics and Indian Pediatrics. She has been honorary speaker at various international and national conferences and forums. She has authored various articles, journals and books on vaccines, vaccinology, infectious diseases and rare pediatric diseases with various national and international publications in indexed journals. She has been the Principal investigator for a number of clinical trials conducted in pediatric population across several therapeutic areas.

E-mail: monjorimr@gmail.com