AMP Receives Grant From the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to Support Cholera Surveillance in Africa

PARIS, January 14 - The Agence de Medecine Preventive (AMP) has received a
three-year grant of $4.9 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to
create a consortium supporting cholera prevention and control in Africa.

AMP and the African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET) will
be the core members of the consortium, which will include several other
leading health organizations from around the world. The consortium will
establish an African Cholera Surveillance Network (AFRICHOL) to strengthen
cholera surveillance and outbreak response in at least eight African
countries.

Cholera is an acute, diarrheal disease that can cause death if
untreated. Transmission occurs primarily through ingesting contaminated food
or water. Although the incidence of the illness has declined dramatically in
most parts of the world, outbreaks continue to occur with alarming frequency
in Africa. The continent accounts for more than 90% of reported cases
worldwide, approximately 15% of which result in mortality. The prevalence of
the disease is largely attributed to the region's poor water and sanitation
facilities, large-scale population displacement, and weak health services.

The provision of safe water and the establishment of
sanitation systems constitute the best long-term strategy to prevent cholera.
However, these interventions cannot be fully implemented in the near future
in most cholera-endemic areas. In these settings, new-generation vaccines
offer the greatest potential to control the disease in the medium term.

To determine if cholera vaccination is suitable for a given
population, accurate data on disease burden is needed. Yet, due to poor
surveillance systems and frequent under-reporting, the actual number of cases
is largely underestimated throughout Africa.

"Our goal is to assess the burden of disease so that countries
and donors can decide whether to focus on cholera prevention - be it vaccines
or improved water and sanitation - or alternative health issues," said Dr.
Brad Gessner, AFRICHOL principle investigator and AMP scientific director.

The new grant will help AMP greatly expand cholera
surveillance by actively mobilizing regional and international organizations.
A key partner will be AFENET, which will be responsible for overseeing
project implementation in several countries.

"AMP will rely on its extensive global network to bring to the
table the most important organizations working on cholera prevention in
resource-poor settings," said Alfred da Silva, executive director of AMP. "It
is only through such a collective effort that we will be able to establish
the true burden of disease in sub-Saharan Africa."

The project will consist of several steps over three years.
First, a consortium of international organizations will be established to
provide technical and material support to the network. Second, participating
countries will be identified based on objective criteria. Third, surveillance
activities will be conducted over a period of two years. Finally, the last
six months will be devoted to evaluating and interpreting data, as well as
meeting with health ministers, WHO officials, and representatives of donor
agencies to assess the most appropriate next steps.

About AMP - Founded in 1972, AMP is a nonprofit organization
with headquarters at the Institut Pasteur in Paris and offices in Benin,
Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, and Senegal. AMP's mission is to promote
preventive medicine and public health by developing expertise and applied
research in vaccinology; offering training in epidemiology and health program
management; organizing scientific and technical meetings; and disseminating
information on vaccinology and other health-related fields. For more
information, please visit: www.aamp.org/

About AFENET - The mission of AFENET is to improve the health
of people in Africa by strengthening their own applied epidemiology and
laboratory capacity. Established in 2005 as a nonprofit organization, AFENET
is active in 15 GAVI-eligible African countries as well as in South Africa.
It works in partnership with ministries of health, non-governmental
organizations, international agencies, private sector companies, and public
health agencies. The AFENET secretariat is located in Kampala, Uganda. For
more information, please visit: www.afenet.net/

For more information, please contact Agence de Medecine
Preventive: amp@aamp.org

Contact: Sabrina Gaber, AMP, Tel: +33(0)1-5386-8924, sgaber at aamp.org