Tag Archives: PATH

Toilets, Nerds, and the Importance of Advocacy

Global Health, Public Health, Water and Sanitation, , , , , , , , , ,

Last Friday November 19 was World Toilet Day, and many events took place to observe this occasion. One of which took place in DC, an event called Nerd Nite. This event occurs once a month and features intellectual presentations on a variety of topics, with entertainment in between each presentation. The latest Nerd Nite included a presentation by Hope Randall of Path. End the Neglect was there to capture Hope on film (which we will have up shortly), and she’s been kind enough to provide us a blog post below:

Reprinted with permission from DefeatDD.org.

By: Hope Randall, Program Assistant for PATH’s diarrheal disease communications and advocacy team

I spent last Friday evening celebrating toilets and talking to a group of nerds about the deadly global impact of diarrheal disease and the solutions to defeat it.

Public speaking doesn’t typically make me nervous, but on Friday, I took advantage of my free drink ticket before taking the stage to talk to a group of young DC professionals about diarrhea. While this topic is familiar enough in global health circles, I’m never quite certain how the public at large will react. Will they laugh without taking the message seriously? Wrinkle their noses in disgust? Lose attention completely?

My concerns were completely unwarranted. As I presented “The Scoop on Poop,” we laughed together at potty humor and edgy communications strategies, then easily segued to the heart of the matter: that while we have the luxury of laughing about toilets and poop jokes, children around the world are dying from a lack of water and sanitation commodities that we consider as basic as air. I was touched by the level of instant engagement and the genuine eagerness of the average person to lend a hand. I felt a sense of camaraderie when I announced that it was World Toilet Day and the crowd whooped and cheered. Continue reading →

Scientists in the Role of Advocates: Fashion leads the way

Global Health, poverty, Public Health, , , , ,

by: Dr. John Wecker, PATH

httpv://www./watch?v=06v4txfdWms&feature=player_embedded

A makeshift fashion runway. Pulsating music. The flash of strobe lights. The softness from a fog machine.  And a dozen leading pediatricians, scientists, and government officials modeling the latest in Filipino designer fashion wear. 

That was the scene from an evening gala event at the recent 2nd Asian Vaccine Conference (ASVAC) in Manila, Philippines. It was event intended to inject some levity after a long day of lectures and presentations, and to introduce the audience to an important aspect of Filipino culture (I have come to learn that Filipino women have a strong sense of cultural identity expressed through designer fashion). 

Beyond the haute couture, the willingness of these highly accomplished women (and one man) to model designer clothing in front of their colleagues and mentors is an expression of their confidence to move to a place others might find uncomfortable. This willingness to step out of safe boundaries, to go beyond where one’s professional training dictates, will be critical if we are to achieve the challenge set forth this year at ASVAC: Every Vaccine for Everyone:  Ensuring Equity. This is a challenge that can only be overcome if scientists join their voices in vaccine advocacy.

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Future Vaccine May Block the Bite of Malaria Transmitting Mosquitoes

Global Health, UncategorizedJohns Hopkins, , mosquito, , , vaccine

Mosquito

Mosquitoes are renowned for being pesky little insects that can leave you scratching your arms during the warm months, but for individuals residing in proximity to the Anopheles genus—the only species of mosquito which can transmit malaria—the bite of an infected mosquito is more than a nuisance and can be fatal if not promptly treated with the proper medication.

Each year nearly 900,000 people die of malaria, with the majority of deaths occurring in children under the age of five in Sub-Saharan Africa.  With this devastating toll in mind, researchers from the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health and Sabin Vaccine Institute have formed a partnership to develop a novel vaccine—a “transmission blocking” vaccine that would stop the malaria parasite from developing in the mosquito, and thus, block the transmission of malaria from mosquitoes to humans.

Over the next 18 months, MVI, Johns Hopkins, and Sabin will collaborate to produce and characterize an antigen that can activate the body’s defenses to disrupt the complex human-mosquito transmission cycle of malaria. When an infected mosquito takes blood from a person vaccinated with the AnAPN1 vaccine—which field research indicates is capable of blocking transmission of the two deadliest malaria parasites, Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax—antibodies in the humans’ blood will prevent the parasite from attaching to and invading the mosquito’s gut.

Learn More Here

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