Dear Friends,

We live in an era of unprecedented gaps in health between rich countries and poor countries. Sometimes called the "90/10 gap," developing countries experience 90% of the world's infectious disease mortality, yet only 10% of resources devoted to the control of infectious diseases find their way to the developing world.

The good news is that vaccines have repeatedly been demonstrated to be the most cost-effective tools for preventing infectious diseases and that recent advances in biotechnology offer the prospect of new vaccines against diseases for which no previous vaccines existed and of vastly improved versions of existing vaccines. As well, there are now unprecedented resources now being made available from the public sector entities such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the GAVI Alliance, and OECD governments to develop and deploy new vaccines for the world's poorest people.

The International Vaccine Institute (IVI), located in Seoul, the Republic of Korea, was established to assist efforts to close the gap in vaccines for the developing world versus those for the industrialized world by conducting research and delivering technical assistance. The IVI is the world's only international research organization devoted solely to bringing new vaccines to the poor populations of the developing world. To date, 40 countries and the WHO have signed the IVI Establishment Agreement.

During the years since the IVI was established in 1997, the Institute has become an important partner in global efforts to develop and deploy new vaccines for the poor. It has conducted major programs of field research on new vaccines against enteric infections, pneumonia, meningitis, dengue fever, and Japanese encephalitis in 28 countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Especially exciting in this regard was the recent launch of a collaborative project with the Academy of Medical Sciences of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on vaccines against central nervous system infections in DPRK children. It has also provided technical assistance in vaccine production, regulation, and evaluation to professionals in more than 20 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

The IVI's growth has been made possible by generous support from an increasing number of donors. In this respect, the Republic of Korea has played a pivotal role, providing a portion of the IVI's operating budget, as well as a headquarters building with state-of-the-art laboratories. On behalf of the IVI and the broader international community, I would like to extend profound gratitude to the Government of Korea for its continuous support and generosity since the inception of the IVI. The wonderful support of the Government of Korea to the IVI is no better typified than by the generosity of Korea's First Lady, Mrs. Kim Yoon-ok in serving as the Honorary President of the Korea Support Committee for the IVI.

With the completion of the beautiful IVI headquarters building in 2003, the Institute has been able to launch an exciting new laboratory sciences program. Although the laboratory program is only four years old, it has already made significant scientific advances, including the development of novel adjuvants that have the potential to significantly increase the effectiveness of oral vaccines; the discovery of a new common protein antigen that could serve as a simple and inexpensive vaccine against shigellosis, a disease that kills 1 million children annually; the development of new animal models for Shigella to evaluate future shigellosis vaccines; discovery of an entirely new way of administering vaccines without injections-sublingually; and the completed development of three new vaccines, one against cholera and two against typhoid fever, which are now being transferred to producers in developing countries. The recent completion of a new Biosafety Level 3+ laboratory in our headquarters will also allow the IVI to develop vaccines against dangerous pathogens, including avian influenza (H5N1).

In closing, I would like to acknowledge the importance to our programs of the collaboration of many institutions and individuals, from both the private and public sectors and from both the industrialized and developing worlds. And I would like to thank especially the scientists, public health officials, and other collaborators in developing countries who have allowed us to join with them in their work to reduce morbidity and mortality in their countries. It has been an honor to have shared the hopes and aspirations of these dedicated persons.