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How the Wellcome Trust Fights Infectious Diseases

The Wellcome Trust Fights Infectious Diseases
Amongst many others, three prevalent issues that continue to burden citizens across the world are mental health problems, weather changes and infectious diseases. Thankfully, organizations such as the Wellcome Trust specialize in these areas and hope to alleviate public health issues through research initiatives and partnerships. It incorporates work with businesses, academia, philanthropies, governments and the public to support the role science takes in solving health challenges. Not only does its work advance the study of science and medicine, but it also benefits under-developed countries needing assistance. Here is some information about the ways the Wellcome Trust fights infectious diseases around the world.

About the Wellcome Trust

The founder of the Wellcome Trust is Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome, a former philanthropist, and pharmacist who worked tirelessly to advance medical research. Born in 1853, Sir Henry Wellcome had an interest in pharmaceuticals and other cultures from an early age. After studying pharmacy and becoming a traveling pharmaceutical salesman, Wellcome formed Burroughs Wellcome & Co. in 1880 and worked to register a new form of tablets that were safer than traditional pills. He went on to profit handsomely from this company and used his wealth to fund many different scientific research laboratories, as well as collect different historical objects and books relating to medicine. Toward the end of his life, Sir Henry Wellcome formed the Wellcome Trust. This organization emerged to benefit those hoping to further biomedical research by providing funding. Today, the Wellcome Trust serves as the second-largest medical research charity in the world.

The Wellcome Trust strategizes to make improvements in public health by supporting various research programs. Wellcome works to advance research in the biomedical science sphere in hopes of bettering the understanding of health and disease. Its areas of scientific research include:

  • Genetics, Genomics and Molecular Biology
  • Infectious Disease and the Immune System
  • Cell and Developmental Biology
  • Physiology and Non-communicable Disease
  • Neuroscience and Mental Health

The Wellcome Fund’s Research Grants

The trust provides research grants to scientists, artists, educators and innovators in 70 countries. Many major collaborations have resulted from Wellcome-funded or co-funded research initiatives, such as the Cancer Genome Project and the Ebola Emergency Initiative. The trust provides funding schemes for potential grantees looking to increase research in biomedical science, population health, product development and applied research, humanities and social sciences, or public engagement and creative industries. In 2016, the Wellcome Trust received the title of the largest philanthropic funding of health research and others noted it for its people-focused funding.

The Wellcome Fund’s Initiatives in Africa and Asia

Wellcome’s work in Africa and Asia has resulted in significant impacts for those regions, such as recognizing treatments for infectious diseases and implementing programs that benefit African-led initiatives.

It has administered numerous programs in Africa and Asia, such as the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme (KWTRP) in partnership with the Kenya Medical Research Institute, as well as The Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI). Both of these programs take a special interest in researching to understand the diseases that cause high mortality rates in their regions and use this information to improve public health in their area. The ability to understand the health of a population enables the use of intervention to improve the overall quality of life in that area. One significant impact that has resulted from this focus on Africa and Asia is the discovery of a more effective treatment for severe malaria, which went on to become the World Health Organization’s (WHO) global policy recommendation. Additionally, The Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA) emerged.

This organization fosters scientific excellence through mentoring upcoming research leaders and translating research into products and policies that improve the lives of people in Africa. With innovators in Africa leading it, the organization hopes to transform health research on the African continent to benefit citizens.

Distribution of Vaccines

The Wellcome Trust fights infectious diseases through the advancement of vaccines and helping distribute them to under-developed countries, which benefits impoverished citizens in more ways than one. About 2 million deaths each year are due to inadequate access to vaccines in low and middle-class countries. In impoverished countries that possess weak health care systems, easily preventable and treatment illnesses can run rampant and result in the death of children and already ill individuals. Many of these struggling nations also lack strong, well-established governments that can provide resources to help their citizens. This is why Wellcome supports the development of new and improved vaccines and hopes to enable vaccines that already exist for use in a broader context.

The Wellcome Trust understands that low and middle-income countries with high rates of infectious disease need to create their own immunization policies based on research evidence and prioritize cost-effectiveness. Therefore, it works with predominant organizations, such as Gavi, to fund and share relevant research with these areas to help them with their decision-making. Vaccines hold the potential to not only prevent sickness and death in impoverished nations but can also bolster education and economic development in struggling areas.

Ultimately, Wellcome uses its renowned research grant programs to cultivate discoveries involving global public health. Its initiatives reach across the entire world and result in new research that forces scientists to re-evaluate how to approach medicine and infectious diseases. Its discoveries also benefit struggling nations, such as areas in Africa and Asia, that greatly need invention to help their communities. The Wellcome Trust fights infectious diseases by helping the world gain a better understanding of science and supported some of the brightest minds in the scientific field to uncover improvements in public health.

– Hope Shourd
Photo: Flickr

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8 Facts about Education in the United Kingdom

Eight Facts About Education in the United Kingdom
When thinking about education in the United Kingdom, it is almost impossible not to consider Oxford and Cambridge. These two-century-old bastions of higher education in England garner recognition throughout the world and lend themselves to an image of British superiority in education. Rightfully so, they sit atop the education system but facilitate the overlooking of the rest of it. When looking further down the hierarchy, imperfections emerge, bordering on a crisis. Despite its image of a wealthy, developed nation, 4.5 million children live below the poverty line, comprising 33 percent of the country’s demographic. With such a substantial proportion of students struggling to feed and clothe themselves, poverty takes a profound toll on British education. Here are eight facts about education in the United Kingdom that illustrate the crisis.

 8 Facts About Education in the United Kingdom

  1. Poverty and Education: As a testament to how staggeringly poverty affects the classroom, 87 percent of teachers and other staff claim that it has a significant impact on learning, according to a survey that the National Education Union and Child Poverty Action Group conducted. Six out of 10 respondents in this survey said that the situation had worsened since 2015. Surveys such as these demonstrate the shift in focus from children’s learning and development to their fundamental well being.
  2. Food Banks: To combat this growing issue, many schools in the U.K. host food banks to feed students and their families. About 8 percent of schools operate a food bank on-site, according to the National Governance Association’s survey. In addition to basic food services, many schools feel the need to provide general welfare as well, including emergency loans for parents.
  3. Teachers Provide Care: Teachers themselves bear much of this burden, often balancing their duty to educate with an instinct to care by providing foods such as cereal to students in the middle of lessons. Additionally, some go to the lengths of washing clothes for their pupils and ensuring they have food during holidays. The most compassionate educators dip into their own bank accounts to buy supplies and clothes for the kids that need it most. The CfBT Education Trust started in 1968 as the Center for British Teachers and became a charity in 1976. It generally researches and supports the education sector, often in service of teachers to alleviate these issues.
  4. Attempt to Garner Funding: With funding strapped already, schools worry about their ability to accommodate disadvantaged pupils. Seventy-eight percent of school governors reported a general failure to meet needs due to inadequate funds and 61 percent said that they could not extend support to disadvantaged students. Compelled to help these children, many lobby for additional funding that they doubt will come.
  5. Sure Start Centers: Record unemployment, stagnant wages and high inflation place low-income parents in a precarious situation, sometimes choosing between sending sick kids to school and losing a day’s pay to stay at home with them. In 2010, 3,500 Sure Start centers operated throughout the U.K. to mitigate some of the daycare and other early childhood necessities for parents who needed them. Since then, however, 1,000 have closed or have severely restricted services.
  6. Challenges for Students: While parents and teachers face hardships due to the poverty crisis, children ultimately suffer the most. Students ashamed of their lack of supplies or new clothes skip school more frequently out of fear of bullying. This exacerbates their already tired, hungry, angry and confused mindset. Their poverty affects their learning at home just as much as at school, where crowded, noisy homes make homework and regular sleep exceedingly difficult. On top of that, their lack of resources shows more dramatically than at school. Computers, textbooks and other supplies become inaccessible in families that do not work or work hard but can barely afford the basics.
  7. Children’s Mental Health: Due to all of this, low-income children often feel that they fall behind wealthy classmates, and may develop mental health issues as a result. In the short term, one in four feels anxious or worried about their family’s financial situation. In the long term, these children have more than two times the chance of developing more permanent mental health conditions. The Sutton Trust encourages social mobility through education by focusing on efforts to combat educational inequality.
  8. Charities: In addition to those aforementioned, numerous charities combat these conditions. The Nuffield Foundation strives to benefit social welfare through funding education, science and social science research projects. Nesta, formerly the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, originated in 1998 to promote innovation in the U.K. by running practical programs, conducting research and supporting partnerships. The Education Endowment Foundation champions a dedication to the insurance that children from all kinds of backgrounds have access to education, fulfilling their potentials and applying their talents. Lastly, the Wellcome Trust funds biomedical research as well as promoting the public understanding of science.

These eight facts about education in the United Kingdom do not cast a particularly optimistic light, although there are several efforts to improve circumstances. Though the U.K. faces an exceedingly uphill task to address poverty and education in Britain, the charities named in this article do excellent work to assist as many children as they can. While their work is important and provides desperately needed support, ultimately the government’s funding cuts impede systematic progress. The good news is that many candidates across the U.K. recognize the need for more education funding and have promised it ahead of the upcoming December 2019 election.

– Alex Myers
Photo: Flickr