Grand challenges in global health

Bill Gates announced this initiative in January 2003 and invited proposals from the leading researchers of the world to identify the most important problems that need to solved for global health. They narrowed down to 14 grand challenges:

1. Create Effective Single-Dose Vaccines
2. Prepare Vaccines that Do Not Reqire Refrigeration
3. Develop Needle-Free Vaccine Delivery Systems
4. Devise Testing Systems for New Vaccines
5. Design Antigens for Protective Immunity
6. Learn About Immunological Responses
7. Develop Genetic Strategy to Control Insects
8. Develop Chemical Strategy to Control Insects
9. Create a Nutrient-Rich Staple Plant Species
10. Find Drugs and Delivery Systems to Limit Drug Resistance
11. Create Therapies that Can Cure Latent Infection
12. Create Immunological Methods to Cure Latent Infection
13. Develop Technologies to Assess Population Health
14. Develop Versatile Diagnostic Tools

If you notice, all of them are trying to create practical systems for administering drugs and detecting problems that are especially suited for the social settings in rural populations. Here, sanitation is poor, economic status is not condusive to continual care, education is absent, communication/power/transport infrastructure is bad, and hunger is predominant. Over 400 million $ have been given out in grants by the Bill/Melinda Gates Foundation and other organizations so far.

A recent breakthrough has been achieved for a diarrhoea vaccine for the Rota virus, which accounts for a third of the 500,000 deaths due to diarrhoea. Tests show great hope, and this could be a first step towards meeting the grand challenges in global health.