December 14, 2023, PANAMA CITY, Panama — The International Vaccine Institute (IVI), an international organization with a mission to discover, develop, and deliver safe, effective, and affordable vaccines for global health, and Gorgas Memorial Institute for Health Studies (Gorgas Institute), Panama’s public health research institute, held a global stakeholder meeting for chikungunya in Panama City, Panama from December 12-13 to set forth and deliver on a unified agenda for chikungunya vaccine development and access.
Chikungunya, a viral disease spread to humans by infected Aedes mosquitoes, poses a growing threat to global health, with over 110 countries across the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Europe reporting outbreaks. The first meeting of its kind, “Chikungunya Virus: Recent Outbreaks, Vaccine Development, and the Way Forward” highlighted the growing burden of disease in Latin America and other regions as well as the current landscape of vaccines in development. The meeting covered recent outbreaks of the disease as well as considerations for regulatory approval and policy, calling on over 100 policymakers, researchers, vaccine manufacturers, and global health professionals to share their experiences and identify problems to solve ahead of the first generation of chikungunya vaccines.
Dr. Jerome Kim, Director General of IVI, said: “Developing safe and effective vaccines is a tremendous achievement, but they are only truly impactful when they are used. With chikungunya emerging as a critical threat to global health and new vaccines on the horizon, now is the time for policymakers and the chikungunya vaccine community to come together to align on a path forward that ensures these vaccines are available, affordable, and widely used. We hope this first Chikungunya Global Meeting serves as a launch pad for continual collaboration and joint advocacy.”
Dr. Juan Miguel Pascale, Director General of Gorgas Memorial Institute for Health Studies, said: “In conjunction with the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) headquartered in South Korea, the Gorgas Institute becomes co-host of the most significant regional event for the promotion of the development and implementation of vaccines against Chikungunya. Recent data, from Paraguay and other countries, demonstrates that this virus can not only be lethal but is also responsible for important morbidity that affects the work capacity of our population. We do not have more time; the opportunity is now for us to regionally unite and define the best strategy for the control and prevention of Chikungunya infection at a global level. Panama feels honored to be a participant in this important activity.”
Dr. Sushant Sahastrabuddhe, Acting Deputy Director General of IVI, said: “A key objective of the Chikungunya Global Meeting is to seek information and alignment between countries, vaccine manufacturers, National Regulatory Authorities, the donor community, and global agencies such as the World Health Organization and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance on the current gaps in introducing chikungunya vaccines and how we must come together to resolve them.”
Dr. Eduardo Ortega-Barria, National Secretary of Panama’s National Secretariat for Science and Technology (Senacyt), delivered opening remarks at the meeting in addition to Drs. Kim and Pascale. The two-day meeting featured 26 presentations across chikungunya disease burden and experiences from recent outbreaks; vaccine development; regulatory approval; and policy, financing, and procurement as well as panel discussions. View the full agenda and list of speakers here.
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About Chikungunya
Chikungunya is a viral disease spread to humans by infected Aedes mosquitoes, causing fever, severe joint and muscle pain, headache, and fever. Although chikungunya is not a fatal disease, the resulting joint pain is often debilitating and can persist for weeks to years. However, severe cases and deaths related to chikungunya have been reported. Chikungunya-virus-carrying mosquitoes are endemic to tropical regions of the Americas, Africa, and Southeast Asia, though climate change and rising temperatures are potentially creating more habitable areas, putting more people at risk of infection.
About the International Vaccine Institute (IVI)
The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) is a non-profit international organization established in 1997 at the initiative of the United Nations Development Programme with a mission to discover, develop, and deliver safe, effective, and affordable vaccines for global health.
IVI’s current portfolio includes vaccines at all stages of pre-clinical and clinical development for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries, such as cholera, typhoid, chikungunya, shigella, salmonella, schistosomiasis, hepatitis E, HPV, COVID-19, and more. IVI developed the world’s first low-cost oral cholera vaccine, pre-qualified by the World Health Organization (WHO), and developed a new-generation typhoid conjugate vaccine that is currently under assessment for WHO PQ.
IVI is headquartered in Seoul, Republic of Korea with a Europe Regional Office in Sweden and Collaborating Centers in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Madagascar. 39 countries and the WHO are members of IVI, and the governments of the Republic of Korea, Sweden, India, Finland, and Thailand provide state funding. For more information, please visit https://www.ivi.int.
About Gorgas Memorial Institute for Health Studies
The Instituto Conmemorativo Gorgas de Estudios de la Salud (The Gorgas Memorial Institute for Health Studies (GMI)) is a medical research institution in Panama that has been dedicated for more than 80 years on investigating diseases in the tropics and preventive medicine. The institute was created in 1921 by the country’s president Dr. Belisario Porras, to honor Dr. William Crawford Gorgas, who eradicated yellow fever in Panama. This achievement allowed the construction of the Panama Canal. Gorgas Memorial Laboratories was inaugurated in 1928 with a focus on tropical medicine and research on virology and parasitology. The institute was under American direction until 1990, when it became Panamanian. Today GMI is an autonomous public institution that works closely with the Ministry of Health. Its vision is to improve the health of Panama and Central America. Its mission is to develop health research in Panama, to fulfill the functions of a national public health laboratory and to provide education to health care workers and laboratory professionals of the region.
GMI research focuses on viruses of public health importance in the country, emergent and reemergent viruses, zoonotic pathogens, tropical parasites, medical entomology, but also on non-transmissible diseases that have the highest impact on the populations’ health. Its research work is complemented by its role in national surveillance and national reference laboratory.
For more information, please visit https://www.gorgas.gob.pa