News and events - 2017

News and events 2017

December 2017

Rwanda mapping underway

As part of their 'Global Atlas of Podoconiosis' work, Dr Kebede Deribe and Prof Gail Davey from BSMS joined collaborators from the Rwanda Biomedical Centre to train five teams of four data collectors in Musanze, northern Rwanda in November. Each team consisted of a team leader, a medical doctor, a nurse and a laboratory technician. Training covered a background on podoconiosis (podo), practical sessions on smartphone data entry and use of two rapid tests known as Wb123 and FTS. The five teams started mapping through all 30 districts in Rwanda this week and will aim to complete mapping within one month. The results will enable the Rwandan Ministry of Health to prioritise service provision in certain districts and serve as a baseline to measure the impact of future interventions of podo in Rwanda.

A farmer ploughing a field with a black cow

November 2017

Professor Gail Davey, Dr Kebede Deribe and Esther Garibay from the Global Health and Infection department participated in the Annual Meeting of the Coalition for Operational Research on Neglected Tropical Diseases (COR-NTD) in Baltimore, MD November 3-4.

Prof Davey chaired and presented at a panel on Identifying a Research Agenda for NTD-related Stigma and Mental Health Care.

The goal of the COR-NTD meeting is to strengthen the community of NTD researchers, program implementers and their supporters to address knowledge gaps in a coordinated way, and to inform the agenda of future NTD research.

As such, it presented a good opportunity for Dr Deribe to share an update on the Global Atlas of Podoconiosis work, including his recent publication on Calculating the cases in Ethiopia using geostatistical methods, as well as to introduce the new NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) based at BSMS.A lot of discussion took place regarding how diagnosis and care for NTDs, for example skin related ones could be integrated to offer more effective morbidity management and strengthen prevention programmes.

October 2017

Gail Davey, Professor of Global Health Epidemiology at BSMS, appointed as Vice Chair of the Neglected Tropical Disease NGO Network (NNN).

Prof Davey's appointment took place at the 8th annual NNN summit in Dakar, Senegal in October 2017 where 300 participants from 100 organisations and 49 countries discussed the importance of cross-sector collaboration in ending the Neglected Tropical Diseases that affect one billion of the world’s poorest people.

Commenting on her appointment, Prof Davey said: "This is a great opportunity to advocate the voice of the implementers, and a strategic move for BSMS, given recent funding as a NIHR global health research unit on NTDs. I've been able to represent NNN in a Stakeholders' Working Group meeting in Geneva at which we reviewed progress towards the London Declaration goals, and there will be many further opportunities like this."

The NNN was established in October 2009 to create a global forum for non-governmental organisations working to control NTDs including onchocerciasis, lymphatic filariasis, schistosomiasis, soil transmitted helminths, trachoma, and leprosy. One of its strengths is that its membership is mostly community based organisations that are working on the ground with local leaders to bring about change.

Group photo of the members of the International research partnership on antimicrobial resistance

September 2017

Prioritising Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR): Establishing an Interdisciplinary International Research Partnership to Tackle an Evolving Global Health Threat.

The AMR-IRPN network is a research partnership between six institutions that provides a cross-disciplinary approach to one of the most pressing global health threats of our time.

Established in 2016, IRPN works across several countries, and fosters a number of external connections that will allow the team to develop a global surveillance network to better understand and respond to the emergence of AMR. The expertise within the network includes molecular microbiology, clinical microbiology and infectious diseases, as well as international relations, policy, anthropology and development studies.

Following the initial network meeting in October 2016 at BSMS, a second meeting took place in in Cairo, Egypt on 25 & 26 July 2017 with the aim of reviewing the joint research goals, foster South-South collaboration and share knowledge and expertise in tackling AMR regionally. Dr. Leena Al- Hassan, one of the architects of the network, and Professor Melanie Newport from the Global Health and Infection department at BSMS were both present at the meeting. In addition to capacity building, the network will now focus on carrying out 6-month pilot projects that will fall into two broad categories:

The first will look at the molecular epidemiology of gram-negative (GN) resistance in Cairo and Sudan and the role of MRSA in the intensive care unit.
The second category of work will focus on developing antibiotic stewardship and infection prevention control strategies in two North African countries including evaluating the need for increased educational resources.

The implementation of the projects will be discussed at the follow up IRPN meeting in January 2018, and the results of the pilot studies will be discussed at an IRPN meeting in Summer 2018, followed by consolidation of data and finalisation of larger funding application to develop this work further, which may include expansion to the community.

August 2017

PhD Viva success

Congratulations to Dr Daire Cantillon, who successfully navigated his PhD Viva on 11 July on tuberculosis pathogenesis, supervised by Dr Simon Waddell (Senior Lecturer in Microbial Pathogenesis, BSMS), Prof Melanie Newport (Professor (Honorary Consultant) of Global Health and Infection) and Dr Ian Cooper, Principal Lecturer in Microbiology, University of Brighton).

Group photo from an African village - people sitting on the floor listening to a speaker

July 2017

Multi-million pound award boosts research into neglected tropical diseases

Research into neglected tropical diseases that cause suffering among some of the world’s poorest communities has been given a much-needed boost by a multi-million pound grant to a specialist team at BSMS. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has awarded the Global Health research team at BSMS a £5,745,589 million from 2017-2021 to establish a global research unit, which will be known as the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on NTDs at BSMS. The grant includes support for seven major projects across three often-neglected NTDs: podoconiosis, mycetoma and scabies.

Small Batch Coffee joins campaign to prevent podo

Gail Davey, Professor of Global Health Epidemiology at BSMS, gave a presentation at Small Batch Coffee’s Jubilee Street store in Brighton on Thursday 13 July to raise awareness and money to combat podoconiosis.The event featured an array of Ethiopian specialities including Ethiopian food and a DJ playing Ethiopian tunes, with all proceeds going towards Preventing Podo, the initiative led by Prof Davey with the support of the Alumnus Relations Office at the University of Sussex.

'Complete the course' message for antibiotics should be dropped

Advice that patients should complete a course of antibiotics is not supported by evidence and should be dropped, according to researchers at BSMS and colleagues. The authors of the paper in the BMJ call for a change of message regarding antibiotic use, arguing that patients are actually being put at unnecessary risk from antibiotic resistance when treatment is given for longer than necessary, rather than when it is stopped early, as commonly believed. Lead author Martin J Llewelyn, Professor of Infectious Diseases at BSMS, said: “While the ‘complete the course’ message is one we all know, we have found that it is time for this message to change. The belief that stopping antibiotic treatment increases the risk of antibiotic resistance is not supported by evidence. In fact, this risk is actually increased by taking antibiotics for longer than is necessary.”

MORE about our antibiotics research paper >

Group photo from when the Global Health team visited Rwanda

June 2017

Global Health team visit Rwanda

Dr Kebede Deribe and Prof Gail Davey, Wellcome Trust Brighton and Sussex Centre for Global Health Research, travelled to Kigali and the Musanze district, Rwanda, to make preparations for country mapping for instances of podoconiosis with collaborators from the Ministry of Health, Rwaza Health Centre and the Imidido project. Dr Deribe and Prof Davey were delighted to meet patients and make good progress with the mapping protocol.

Students conducting Podo research in the field

April 2017

Podoconiosis at the WHO Neglected Tropical Disease Summit

The World Health Organisation hosted a Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) Summit from 19-23 April to celebrate progress in the five years since the London Declaration on NTDs.

BSMS was represented by Prof Gail Davey and Dr Kebede Deribe from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Global Health Research.

Achievements celebrated include treating 1 billion people in NTD-endemic areas, and massive reductions in sleeping sickness and Guinea worm disease. The Summit included sessions focused on single diseases and others encouraging integrated efforts across diseases.

Prof Davey spoke on integrated foot care in the 'Skin and limb care in NTDs' session and both Prof Davey and Dr Deribe hosted a session on the 'Global Atlas of Podoconiosis', as recently described in the Lancet Global Health.

The 'Global Atlas of Podoconiosis' session was also picked up in an article in The Guardian, and new partners have already come forward to contribute to global mapping efforts as a result.

March 2017

In conversation with Dr Kebede Deribe

Dr Kebede Deribe, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at BSMS, is being funded by a five-year Wellcome Trust Intermediate Fellowship in Public Health and Tropical Medicine to develop the Global Atlas of Podoconiosis. He spoke to Pulse, Brighton and Sussex Medical School's magazine about his research.

Still from the 'Best Foot Forward' animated film

February 2017

Award for Footwork's podoconiosis video

Footwork is the co-winner of the 2017 Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH) Pulitzer Global Health Video Competition for the video 'Best Foot Forward', developed in partnership with Ripple Effect Images.

The video depicts depicting the source, treatment and prevention of podoconiosis and to be used as training material for those in affected in endemic areas.

January 2017

'Survival gene' stops strains of TB mutating into deadly 'superbugs'

Published in the journal Nature Communications, the study reported the discovery of a gene called NucS that dramatically reduces mutation rates in mycobacteria – the infectious microbe that causes TB.

Tuberculosis is the leading cause of death worldwide by an infectious disease, killing 1.8 million people every year. Drug-resistant TB is on the rise, with drug-resistant strains of the disease identified in 105 countries and TB accounting for one-third of all drug-resistant bacterial infections. The research team believe that the identification of this key pathway, required to supress mutation rates in mycobacteria, is an important step towards understanding how ‘superbugs’ develop.