 Asia Poised for Bigger Role in Health Research
SARS, bird flu served as training grounds
SINGAPORE
Asian scientists are well placed to take a leading role in the global search for vaccines against emerging diseases after gaining valuable experience from fighting recent health epidemics.
Fewer government restrictions on medical research compared with other parts of the world also give the region's scientists an edge, said David Heymann, executive director of communicable diseases at the World Health Organization.
"SARS, avian flu, both of these diseases have shown that there is a place for Asian scientists because the diseases are occurring in Asia," Heymann said in an interview during a medical symposium in Singapore on July 6. "And Asian scientists were very active in both the SARS and the (bird) influenza. There were some topnotch scientists WHO have contributed most of what we know and those scientists were Asians."
Heymann, WHOse task is to monitor communicable diseases, said it was important Asian scientists took a more active role in medical research because their counterparts elsewhere were hindered by tougher regulations.
"Asia has many capable scientists and they must now begin to play a role in world research and development because in [other] parts of the world, research has become very restrictive," he said.
Heymann cited inability to use stem cells, other heavy regulatory processes, and high research and development costs as critical factors hampering scientists elsewhere.
"So Asia where the cost is less, where regulation might be a different approach, has to play its role," he said.
Heymann believes Hong Kong and Singapore particularly have the potential to make their mark. "Hong Kong has excellent research and development, especially research, capabilities in identifying and responding to new diseases," he said. "Singapore also has great capacities and great potential through things such as the NITD," he said, referring to the Novartis Institute of Tropical Diseases research facility that opened recently.
Heymann said the NITD, a joint collaboration between Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis and the Singapore government, could pave the way for new, low-cost drugs to treat tropical diseases such as tuberculosis.
Sixty-four researchers from around the world will work at the nonprofit Novartis institute, which is initially aiming to find cheap treatments for dengue fever and drug-resistant tuberculosis. There is currently no drug that can treat dengue fever, which infects as many as 50 million people annually, mostly in the developing world. AFP
Pollution Killing Children
BUDAPEST
European health and environment ministers have warned of the deadly effects of pollution on millions of children and unborn babies. In Europe and Central Asia alone, 100,000 children die yearly because of the ill effects of the environment, according to top health officials of the WHO.
"Public health as we know it is being reshaped and environmental determinants of health are becoming ever more important," Kerstin Leitner, assistant director general of the WHO, said in a conference on health and the environment held in Budapest in late June. "They are becoming particularly important for children because we know what happens to a child determines the health or the ill health of a person in later life."
One in three deaths among children and adolescents in Europe and Central Asia are caused by either air pollution, unsafe water, lead, or injuries linked to environmental problems, according to a WHO report. "Initial evidence suggests that air pollution affects the unborn, with effects on children's health later in life," it said. Indoor and outdoor air pollution cause the deaths of more than 18,000 under-four children annually.
Lead is the single most important chemical toxin for children and the young are especially vulnerable to their exposure. The WHO said the absorption of lead in children is 40 percent, compared with 10 percent in adults, endangering them at a critical period of brain development.
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