1,000 people in Seattle party for a TB vaccine

Jun 17th, 2011 5:42 PM UTC
By ONE Partners

Tonight, the Washington Global Health Alliance will be hosting a big event with A Party With A Purpose to help raise awareness for the tuberculosis vaccine. Even if you don’t live in Seattle, where the party is located, you can still learn more about the party — which is pretty cool in of itself!

A year has passed since the catastrophic earthquake of January 2010 tore through the streets of Haiti, yet a difficult truth remains; despite the millions of aid dollars pledged and the countless relief teams dispatched, Haiti is still devastated on many levels. One of the most serious aftershocks of the earthquake has been the surge in disease spread, making epidemics of diseases that were previously en route to being controlled.

One disease which has become a heightened concern since the earthquake is tuberculosis (TB). More than one third of the world’s population is infected with the bacteria that cause TB, making the disease a major global health concern. According to the World Health Organization, there are approximately 9 million new cases of TB each year, and close to half a million are resistant to multiple drugs that once effectively treated the disease. Two million people die of TB each year. Haiti is estimated to have the highest per capita TB burden in the Latin American and Caribbean region (USAID).

The Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI), a Seattle based nonprofit organization, has developed a new TB vaccine that protects against multiple strains of the disease in preclinical studies. Though a vaccine for TB known as BCG has been used widely for decades, it only immunizes against childhood forms of the disease, its protection waning over time. IDRI’s TB vaccine enhances and extends BCG and protects against drug-resistant strains through its unique combination of a molecule containing four tuberculosis proteins. Dr. Rhea Coler, Vice President of Preclinical Biology at IDRI, explains, “Combining proteins in a vaccine is important because tuberculosis bacteria are variable, and no single protein will be effective against all strains.” In addition, because of human genetic diversity, individuals will respond differently to different proteins. A combination of proteins increases the vaccine’s effectiveness across the board.

IDRI’s vaccine is now being developed for clinical testing in humans, with plans for future studies in an area where the vaccine is so desperately needed—Port-au-Prince, Haiti. IDRI’s vaccine and partnership with Haitian clinic GHESKIO will be the featured cause of the Party with a Purpose (PWAP) in Seattle, June 17th. PWAP is an event for 20 and 30-somethings to plug into the growing global health movement. A sold-out crowd of 1,000 will learn why a TB vaccine is needed, how an IDRI test is cutting down the time for TB diagnosis and why investing in research, especially vaccine research, is one of the best investments in global health. Learn more and join the party.

-Kendra Curtin, Project Coordinator, Infectious Disease Research Institute; PWAP Board Member

TAGS: From ONE Members, From Our Partners, Tuberculosis, Washington