The Johns Hopkins University has received a $10
million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation to lead a consortium that will study ways to
improve the treatment of trachoma and to
accelerate progress toward the goal of eliminating the
disease. Trachoma is the leading infectious
cause of blindness worldwide and affects hundreds of
millions of people, primarily in poor and rural
regions. The award is one of the largest single grants ever
given to support trachoma research.
The Partnership for the Rapid Elimination of Trachoma,
or PRET, will be led by Sheila West of
the Dana Center for Preventive Ophthalmology at
the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins, in
cooperation with the Johns Hopkins
Center for Global Health. The partners include research
teams at
the university's School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of
Public Health; the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; the University of
California, San Francisco; Pfizer; the World Health
Organization; and the Trachoma Control Programs at the
ministries of health in Tanzania, Ethiopia and
the Gambia.
The WHO has established a goal of fully controlling
trachoma worldwide by 2020. The research
conducted by PRET will help determine which prevention
strategies and treatment interventions will
be the most effective.
"No other research partnership has the breadth and
ability to undertake such a comprehensive
and critical proposal for trachoma control," said West, who
is also a professor at the Johns Hopkins
School of Medicine and holds a joint appointment at the
Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The Gates Foundation grant will fund trials in two
areas of trachoma control — surgery and
antibiotics — in three countries hosting distinct
infection scenarios: the Gambia, where the disease is
on the verge of elimination; Tanzania, where treatment
programs are in place, and the disease is on
the decline; and Ethiopia, where treatment programs have
not yet started.
The surgical phase of the study will examine the use
of new devices to improve outcomes of
surgery. Currently, mass treatment with an antibiotic is
the WHO recommendation for trachoma-
endemic communities. The antibiotic trials will address
questions of how many persons in the
community must be treated and how frequently treatment
should occur to eliminate trachoma.
Pfizer, the private-sector partner in this consortium,
has pledged sufficient antibiotics to
country programs to control trachoma as part of the SAFE
(surgery, antibiotics, facial cleanliness and
environmental improvement) intervention. Antibiotics will
also be provided for research needs.
"Trachoma disproportionately affects women and
children in poor communities, and they often
don't have a voice in priorities for health spending," West
explained. "With this grant, we can target
research to our trachoma control armamentarium and make
better use of scarce resources and control
strategies to alleviate blindness. None of us can do it on
our own; we need to share the data among us
to conquer the disease."
"The Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health is pleased
to be able to facilitate and coordinate
this extraordinary grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation," said Tom Quinn, the center's
director. "This grant enables the center to help
researchers and public health practitioners to control
blinding trachoma, one of the great neglected tropical
diseases affecting millions of people."
The Gates Foundation grant counts in the total of the
Johns Hopkins Knowledge for the World
campaign, which, as of Nov. 30, had raised more than $2.92
billion of its $3.2 billion goal. Priorities of
the campaign, which benefits both The Johns Hopkins
University and The Johns Hopkins Hospital and
Health System, include strengthening endowment for student
aid and faculty support; advancing
research, academic and clinical initiatives; and building
and upgrading facilities on all campuses. The
campaign began in July 2000 and is scheduled to close at
the end of 2008.
The Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health is a unique
collaboration between three
institutions — the schools of Public Health, Medicine
and Nursing — that harnesses the expertise of its
health and medical professionals to address a myriad of
global health challenges: HIV/AIDS, malaria,
tuberculosis, malnutrition, hepatitis and other threats to
health, especially in developing countries. For
more information, go to
www.hopkinsglobalhealth.org.