IVI and Brazil

 

Brazilian Leadership at IVI

 

From 2008 to 2012, Dr. Akira Homma of Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz) served on IVI’s Board of Trustees as the representative of Brazil.

 

From 2011 to 2013, the late Dr. Luiz Jacintho da Silva became the director of the Dengue Vaccine Initiative (DVI) at IVI. He helped to establish DVI as it grew from its predecessor, the Pediatric Dengue Vaccine Initiative (PDVI), and led a team that worked on all aspects of dengue vaccine introduction.

 

Since October 2023, Brazil has been represented on the IVI Global Council by Leandro Safatle, the Deputy Secretary of the Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation and the Health Economic-Industrial Complex, in the Ministry of Health of Brazil.

 

Member State Relations

 

In 1997, Ambassador of Brazil to the United Nations, H.E. Celso L.N. Amorim, signed the IVI Establishment Agreement.

 

In 1999, Brazil ratified the IVI Establishment Agreement and Vice President Marco Antônio de Oliveira Maciel decreed the Agreement’s entry into force. 

 

Ongoing Collaboration

 

Typhoid Surveillance in Brazil, Ethiopia, and Peru

In 2024, IVI launched three projects to estimate the seroincidence of Salmonella Typhi and Salmonella Paratyphi A infections in Peru, Brazil, and Ethiopia. 

 

The project in Brazil, named Enteric Fever Surveillance in Indigenous Populations in Brazil (EFSIB), involves a cross-sectional population-based serosurvey in the city of Maués for Salmonella infections, blood culture surveillance in the highest burden areas, the estimation of incidence rates for typhoid, paratyphoid, invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella, and other pathogenic Enterobacterales, and assessing antimicrobial resistance.

 

In Brazil, EFSIB is being conducted in collaboration with the Instituto Nacional de Cardiologia, Sail for Health, and the Oxford Latam unit. EFSIB is funded by the government of Sweden.

 

Previous Collaboration

 

IVI’s work in Brazil has centered on combating the mosquito-borne dengue virus. Through its consortiums PDVI, DVI, and the Global Dengue & Aedes-Transmitted Diseases Consortium (GDAC) IVI has achieved the following:

  • Development and maintaining of a centralized database for clinical trials of the US NIH-developed dengue vaccine, which forms the basis for Instituto Butantan’s dengue vaccine.
  • Assisted Instituto Butantan with process development, regulatory guidance, commercial scale-up, and Phase I-II clinical trials of their dengue vaccine.
  • The PDVI and DVI consortiums conducted epidemiological disease burden and economic impact studies of dengue throughout Brazil from 2004 to 2013.
  • PDVI and the Brazilian Ministry of Health organized and cohosted the 1st American Dengue Research Network meeting in Recife, Brazil in 2008. This biannual meeting brings together North and South American scientists to foster collaborative work and stimulate high quality translational research in dengue, zika, chikungunya, and other mosquito-borne infections.
  • Provided Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) training with the WHO at the Instituto Nacional de Controle da Qualidade em Saude in Rio de Janeiro in 2000.