The Latest News from VIGH

In continuing, longstanding research collaborations between the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) and Bayero University Kano (BUK) in Kano, Nigeria, and the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH), the three institutions are partnering on a new Infrastructure Development Training Program from the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The project will strengthen infrastructure capacity in research administration and research ethics in Nigeria.

Sickle cell disease (SCD), an inherited blood disorder, is prevalent throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Approximately 240,000 children are born with SCD each year across the continent of Africa, and up to 70% of those infants born with sickle cell disease die before the age of five. 

A recent study co-authored by Dr. Muktar Aliyu, M.D., MPH, DrPH, professor of Health Policy and Medicine and associate director for research for VIGH, assessed the willingness of students at Bayero University in Nigeria to self-test for HIV. The World Health Organization (WHO) encourages the use of HIV self-testing, especially in areas such as West and Central Africa where 64% of people living with HIV are unaware of their status.

The world is currently witnessing a dramatic disruption of everyday life owing to the rapid progression of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. As the pandemic evolves, there is an urgent need to better understand its epidemiology, characterize its potential impact, and identify mitigatory strategies to avert pandemic-related mortality. There is a need for a tool or algorithm to evaluate the extent to which public health policy and/or economic preparedness measures are effectively averting COVID-19 related mortality. We present a simple and yet practical epidemiological tool, the Pandemic Efficiency Index (PEI), that can be utilized globally to test the relative efficiency of measures put in place to avert death resulting from COVID-19 infection. Using the PEI and current COVID-19-related mortality, we determined that so far Germany demonstrates the highest PEI (5.1) among countries with more than 5,000 recorded cases of the infection, indicating high quality measures instituted by the country to avert death during the pandemic. Italy and France currently have the lowest COVID-19-related PEIs. Epidemics and pandemics come and go, but local, national, and global abilities to determine the efficiency of their efforts in averting deaths is critical.

“Terrorism, Healthcare, and Displacement in the West African Sahel,” the second event in a series of workshops hosted by the GlobalVU initiative, will take place on Feb. 21 in the Student Life Center’s Board of Trust Room.

VIGH faculty and colleagues surveyed 30 comprehensive HIV clinics in Nigeria and found they are experiencing major challenges in providing routine HIV services as a result of PEPFAR’s policy changes. The findings were published in PLOS ONE.


 
 Vanderbilt faculty from across campus will have a strong presence at the 2016 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI). In particular, VIGH core faculty Muktar Aliyu M.D., M.P.H., Dr.P.H and Kate Clouse Ph.D., M.P.H. and VIGH affiliated faculty will be presenting their work on optimizing the PMTCT cascade. See more details about their work and other Vanderbilt researchers below:

Muktar Aliyu, associate professor of health policy and associate professor of medicine. Aliyu studies adverse birth outcomes associated with maternal lifestyle-related factors (cigarette smoking, alcohol use, weight gain) and with infectious diseases in resource-limited settings (HIV/AIDS, malaria).


 
 
  
 
 Muktar Aliyu, M.D., M.P.H., Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine, Vanderbilt Universi

Researchers at the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH) recently received a two-year, $895,072 grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study whether an integrated, family-focused approach can prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV—the AIDS virus—in Nigeria.

A team of Vanderbilt researchers recently received a $281,490 award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund a project studying stroke prevention among children with sickle cell disease in Nigeria.