Academic institutions in Ireland need to start using their skills more to help fight diseases in developing countries. That is according to a new consortium to combat diseases of poverty, which will be launched tomorrow.
The €1.9 million-funded consortium will forge links between Irish and East African institutions and help provide the expertise needed to tackle "diseases of poverty" such as HIV/Aids, tuberculosis, malaria and other, less well- known infections such as river blindness, bilharzia, sleeping sickness and dysentery caused by worms.
"We need to build up a greater awareness in Ireland about these problems," said Dr Noel Murphy, who lectures in immunology at NUI Maynooth and co-chairs the new consortium with Dr Jamie Saris from NUIM's department of anthropology.
"Health is a fundamental human right that's denied a large number of people in the world and we all have to do something about it," said Dr Murphy. "We are all used to giving money to disasters and immediate relief but really this is about helping people to help themselves."
The new consortium would look at the social context in which diseases of poverty arise and how scientific research may best be applied, he said. One aim is to provide training for about 30 key people from East Africa in Ireland so they can return home with skills for research problems they are addressing. "It's like sowing a seed, you bring someone across and they commit to applying and training other people when they go back."
Irish researchers will also travel to East Africa and share their experiences through online diaries.
"It's important that our own researchers in Ireland in the social and biological sciences have a much better understanding of the problems to which they can apply their skills.
"We want them to find out what it's like working in a developing country setting. They can then appreciate the real problems they need to deal with," said Dr Murphy, who spent 14 years in Kenya researching the parasitic infection that causes sleeping sickness.
The NUIM-based consortium will be launched tomorrow by former president and UN high commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson and renowned medical anthropologist Dr Paul Farmer from Harvard University.
Over the four-year programme it will collaborate with Trinity College Dublin, St James's Hospital, Kimmage Development Studies Centre and a number of private firms, and will work closely with universities across East Africa.
The project recently won a grant of €1.44 million through the Government's programme of assistance to developing countries, Irish Aid, and through the Higher Education Authority. It is also to receive additional funding from NUIM.
The consortium fits with the Government's aim to nurture skills within Irish institutions that can be used for international development and global poverty reduction, according to Irish Aid health development specialist Dr Diarmuid McClean, who added that Irish Aid would help link the new consortium with wider governance systems in East Africa.
