SCI Annual Workshop 2004
Ministries of Health, Ministries of Education and research institutions were represented. 21 were from the SCI West African counties of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, and from Tanzania, Uganda, Zanzibar and Zambia. There were special invitees from several non-SCI countries, including Cameroon, Mozambique and Guinea. SCI’s Objectives are:
International organisations, NGO’s and Universities represented were (in alphabetical order) Brunel University, Cambridge University, Centre de Recherche Médicale et Sanitaire (CERMES), Children Health Education and Prevention (CHEP), Danish Bilharzia Laboratories (DBL), Harvard Center for Population & Development Studies, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Partnership for Child Development (PCD), Reseau International Schistosomoses, Environnement, Amenagement et Lutte (RISEAL), Save the Children, Wellcome Trust and WHO. Three pharmaceutical companies attended, Glaxo Smith Kline, Pharmchem and Shin Poong.
Professor Alan Fenwick, Director of SCI thanked all the delegates for coming to the meeting, and for all the work that they had put in so far. He pledged that the SCI staff were ready to assist their programmes in any way possible, especially in the field of rapid assessment data collection, mapping, baseline data, monitoring and evaluation. Health education materials and training could also be provided, either by SCI staff or through WHO and DBL. He hopes to bring in more resources so that other countires could be assisted with their national programmes. There is a research component to SCI, and the Harvard Center for Population & Development Studies run a grants programme which is available for all delegates to submit applications.
Among the other presentations were a demonstration of the educational booklets produced by CHEP, “Drug Procurement” - a description of the SCI progress on developing competitive prices for both praziquantel and albendazole, “Management of a control programme” (using Uganda as the example), “Budgeting & planning”, and the “Use of Demographic Surveillance Systems (DSS) as an Evaluative Platform for Schistosomiasis Control”. |
The 2004 SCI Workshop was held at the Imperial College Faculty of
Medicine, St Mary’s Campus, Paddington July 20-23rd and 61 delegates from 19
countries attended.
The meeting was opened by Professor Roy Anderson, Department of
Infectious Disease Epidemiology and chairman of the SCI Advisory Board. He
welcomed the participants, and stressed that although SCI had made a good
start, there was still much work to be done, because a clear scientific
demonstration of the benefits of disease control was an essential component
of SCI. Progress in Uganda, the first country to receive full support from
SCI was an example to the other countries of what could be achieved, but
these other countries had the opportunity to learn from Uganda, and collect
some invaluable data. During the three day meeting, each country in turn
presented a report on the progress towards control of schistosomiasis and
intestinal helminthes. A video film of the progress of the work in Uganda
was screened, and the Wellcome Trust demonstrated the educational and
training CD on schistosomiasis which they are preparing for SCI. (Copies of
the film and the CD are available on request from
The Keynote speech by Dr Sam Zaramba, Director Health Services in Uganda
on behalf of HE Brig Jim Muhwezi, Minister of Health, Uganda was entitled
“Bilharzia and worm control in Uganda: Achievements, experience and
constraints since its launch in March 2003 - The essentials of a sustainable
disease control programme” . The progress made in Uganda, the development of
partnerships and the commitment of the Ministry’s of Health and Education
were remarkable. During the first year 500,000 people were treated, and the
target is to reach 1.3 million in year two, and eventually 4 million, all at
high risk of developing disease due to schistosomiasis. Guest speaker
Professor David Dunne from Cambridge University presented data to show the
serious nature of schistosomiasis and how interaction with malaria infection
can be severe.