Global Gateways
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| Professor O'Neill |
Addressing worldwide health issues takes vision, dedication and vast private and government funds.
UQ research projects to halt the spread of the life-threatening dengue fever virus and to improve public health worldwide have received crucial support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative.
The Foundation this year made multi-million-dollar contributions to projects led by Professor Scott O’Neill, Head of UQ’s School of Integrative Biology, and Professor Alan Lopez, Head of UQ’s School of Population Health.
Professor O’Neill will lead an international team of scientists who hope to shorten the lives of mosquitoes carrying the deadly dengue virus.
“This project has the potential to dramatically improve the lives of people living in dengue-affected regions of Australia and the rest of the world,” Professor O’Neill said.Professor O’Neill said the biological control strategy could eliminate dengue virus transmission from large regional areas.
“We have discovered a type of naturally-occurring bacteria called Wolbachia that passes from one generation of mosquito to the next and can halve the adult mosquito lifespan. This project will seek to introduce the bacteria to mosquitoes so that they do not live long enough to transmit the dengue virus.”
“At the moment, there is no vaccine available and no effective drug to treat dengue cases. This project will provide a large area-wide control strategy that is cost-effective, self-perpetuating and will not require the use of insecticides.”Dengue fever is a potentially fatal disease transmitted by mosquitoes with approximately 2500 million people currently at risk of infection.
UQ will be the lead agency throughout the $10 million, five-year project, working with a team of scientists from Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Australia and the United States.
A further $24.7 million of Gates Foundation funding will be used in the Population Health Metrics Research Consortium Project.
Professor Lopez is the lead UQ researcher in the project, working with teams from Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, and the Broad Institute in the United States. The grant will be used to develop technologies giving nations throughout the world improved strategies for population health measurement, leading to a better understanding of where to direct public health resources.
Professor Lopez said a current lack of simple tools for measuring health meant there were major gaps in understanding the prevalence and incidence of diseases, such as malaria or HIV.
This made allocating resources, implementing treatment and prevention programs and monitoring and evaluating programs difficult or ineffective.
The five-year project will involve field sites in Bangladesh, the Philippines and Tanzania.
“This research will improve measurement strategies, even in countries where health statistics are incomplete, and it will provide researchers and policy makers with innovative and practical tools to measure population health, particularly in resource-poor settings,&rdquoProfessor Lopez said.;
Funding
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
The University of Queensland
Dengue fever
Researchers:
School of Integrative Biology:
Professor Scott O’Neill www.uq.edu.au/uqresearchers/researcher/oneillsl.html
(email: scott.oneill@uq.edu.au)
Website: www.uq.edu.au/sib
School of Population Health:
Professor Alan Lopez www.uq.edu.au/uqresearchers/researcher/lopezad.html
(email: a.lopez@sph.uq.edu)
Dr Chalapati Rao www.uq.edu.au/uqresearchers/researcher/raocpv.html
Associate Professor Jan Barendregt www.uq.edu.au/uqresearchers/researcher/barendregtj.html
Emeritus Professor Ian Riley www.uq.edu.au/uqresearchers/researcher/rileyid.html
Website: www.sph.uq.edu.au
