IVI and Myanmar

IVI Member State

On January 3, 1997, The Permanent Representative of the Union of Myanmar to the United Nations, H.E. U Win Mra, signed the IVI Establishment Agreement.

On October 11, 2020, the Ambassador of Myanmar to the Republic of Korea, H.E. Thant Sin, participated in IVI’s first annual State Forum.

Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Program

IVI is undertaking a global effort to enhance the generation and sharing of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) data at surveillance sites across Asia and Africa. With funding from the Wellcome Trust’s Fleming Fund, IVI’s CAPTURA program is building surveillance capacity, collecting & analyzing retrospective AMR data, and improving local awareness of AMR in 12 countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Timor Leste, and Vietnam.

IVI’s CAPTURA has held informal discussions with Myanmar’s National Health Laboratory (NHL), and with the Myanmar offices of WHO-SEARO, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the Mérieux Foundation.

Previous work in Myanmar

Capacity Building

Since 2009, 5 Myanma health professionals have participated in IVI’s annual Vaccinology Course.

Dengue Program

From 2008 to 2009, IVI’s Pediatric Dengue Vaccine Initiative (PDVI) conducted a collaborative pathology study in Myanmar and Thailand, which was one of the largest ever collaborative autopsy studies on dengue fever. PDVI spearheaded the effort in Myanmar, where tissue samples were collected from children who had died of dengue hemorrhagic fever. The samples were then transferred to Siriraj Medical School in Bangkok and where scientists identified the infected cells. These cells were analyzed to prove that dengue infection occurred and identified which of the 4 types of dengue were involved. This study was important because as dengue treatments had improved over the years, patients with suspected dengue infection were not routinely autopsied when they died. As a result, causes of death were not clearly determined or tracked and progress was slowed in understanding how dengue viruses caused illness in humans. As a result of these studies, improvements in dengue vaccine design and anti-dengue treatments were identified.