The 2nd SCI Advisory Board Meeting - 30th October 2003The second meeting of the SCI Advisory Board took place on Thursday October 30th in the fine nineteenth-century setting of 170 Queen’s Gate. Professor Roy Anderson was in the chair, and Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz and Tony Cannon also attended from Imperial College. Dr Regina Rabinovich and Dr David Brandling-Bennett represented the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr Joseph Cook, Professor Richard Olds and Professor Michael Reich had flown from the States to be present, while Dr Adetokunbo Lucas had made the journey from Nigeria. From the World Health Organisation, Dr David Heymann represented Dr Asamoah-Baaha, who is the new WHO representative on the Advisory Board.
Left to Right: Dr David Brandling-Bennett and Dr Regina Rabinovich (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), with Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz (Principal of the Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London) After a welcome from the Chairmen, Dr Alan Fenwick made an interactive presentation on the achievements of the SCI to date; including a reference to the fact that schistosomiasis has now had the honour of being a royal disease after His Royal Highness Prince William became infected during a recent visit to Africa. Dr Fenwick reported that the Ugandan Government had launched their campaign against schistosomiasis in March 2003, and had 500,000 people have already received treatment. In what may be seen as a ground breaking decision, the Uganda Ministry of Health included de-worming with the recent Ugandan national measles vaccination campaign which was held in October 2003. SCI had assisted with the arrangements for procurement of 8 million albendazole tablets, which were delivered to children, aged 3-15. SCI is now ready to expand beyond Uganda, and therefore one of the main tasks asked of the Advisory Board was to consider the recommendations from the Technical Committee proposing the next countries’ national schistosomiasis control programmes to be supported. There had been an extensive consultation and selection process, reviewing the proposals from 11 African countries. On 14 July representatives from these countries had gathered for a special Advocacy Meeting in London, when they presented their proposals. Although all the proposals received had much to commend them, the Ranking Committee suggested that there were compelling reasons for selecting Tanzania and Zambia from the Anglophone applicants, together with a West African regional group comprising Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. After discussions, the Advisory Board accepted the ranking committee recommendations, and approved SCI support to Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Tanzania and Zambia. The Advisory Board approved SCI funding for a new WHO-AFRO post. The person appointed under this new joint initiative will liaise with all the African countries on schistosomiasis and de-worming, whether or not they are directly involved with the SCI, and will be the focal point for worm control for the whole African region. At midday the recently recruited SCI staff came across from St Mary’s Campus to meet the Advisory Board and join them for lunch. During the afternoon Professor Michael Reich reported on the activities of the Harvard Schistosomiasis Research Program over the last year. A Research Advisory Committee had been set up, and is reviewing research proposals from 6 African countries, all linked to the SCI programme. Plans were also underway for an African Research Network on schistosomiasis in collaboration with TDR – the WHO special programme for research and training in tropical diseases. All agreed it had been a most productive day, opening the way for SCI to go
forward into new areas with clear objectives and ambitious targets. Only one
small matter remained unresolved – agreement on a suitable SCI logo has so far
proved elusive. |
