CLOSING THE GAP BETWEEN LIFESAVING VACCINES AND THE CHILDREN WHO NEED THEM
Mathuram Santosham, MD, MPH, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
"We underestimate what we can do. The research lessons learned in other countries can be applied to any city in the U.S. And by empowering communities abroad, we learn how to empower people in our own communities."
For Mathu Santosham, MD, MPH, it has been gratifying to see his most promising and successful work with vaccinations save the lives of millions of children. At the same time, he is not satisfied because he knows that these lifesaving vaccines only reach a fraction of the children who need them most. Diarrhea and pneumonia are two leading causes of death among children in other countries while countries like the U.S., Australia and European nations already benefit from the licensed vaccines developed to treat these illnesses.
But Santosham-whose research began in the 1980s with Native American children in Arizona and New Mexico-used life-saving oral rehydration therapies discovered outside of the U.S. to save thousands of lives. He credits global health research with this success but warns that more must be done. "There is a huge disparity between where kids are dying and where vaccines are available. This is not acceptable. The vaccines that are commonly used in the U.S. and in some other countries are not widely used in developing countries in Asia or Africa, where most childhood deaths occur," Santosham says.
Born in Vellore, India, Santosham currently directs the Health Systems Program at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and is founder and director of its Center for American Indian Health. Many of the vaccines that are now used to save American lives were first studied and developed overseas, which explains his passion for ensuring that these treatments get to the most vulnerable populations worldwide. "We belong to the global community and the U.S. benefits from research done in other countries, too." In fact, his work in the past two decades on vaccines for pneumonia, rotavirus and oral rehydration therapy has changed health statistics: children here in the U.S. no longer die from diarrhea.
Santosham says that the missing link to ensuring these treatments get to the most vulnerable populations worldwide is U.S. education and support for global health research. "It's very easy to transmit diseases to the U.S. If we don't take care of global health, we're going to see a resurgence of infectious diseases that were once terrors here, like measles, polio and tuberculosis." He opines, "If these resurface, it will set us back many years and many dollars in health improvements and research."
But Santosham has great hope. "We underestimate what we can do. The research lessons learned in other countries can be applied to any city in the U.S. And by empowering communities abroad, we learn how to empower people in our own communities."