Posted on January 2, 2013

Bloomberg School of Public Health Receives $5 Million From Gates Foundation

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has announced a four-year, $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to launch a cholera vaccine initiative.

Joining a network of Gates-funded vaccine projects aimed at preventing cholera outbreaks worldwide, the Delivering Oral Vaccine Effectively (DOVE) program will work to promote effective use of a new oral cholera vaccine. DOVE will provide relief agencies and governments with best practices for delivering the vaccine, evaluate current cholera vaccine practices, and develop new field surveillance techniques to monitor and control outbreaks of the disease.

In addition, the grant will enable DOVE to establish cholera surveillance in the northern region of Cameroon, near Lake Chad, which has seen high rates of new infections. That effort, in turn, will help researchers develop methods for detecting outbreaks in remote areas and study how the oral vaccine might be used to contain the disease.

"We believe this grant will greatly facilitate the appropriate use of the new cholera vaccine," said David Sack, the program's director and a professor in the international health department at the Bloomberg School. "In partnership with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and other national and international agencies, we believe the DOVE project will provide the knowledge, technical assistance, and encouragement to bring this life-saving vaccine to those who need it most."