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Washington Fax

Febreuary 21, 2001

New Program from Fogarty International Center will fund collaborative international research on non-communicable disease

A new joint program to help low- and medium-income countries deal with the burden of non-communicable disease in the coming decades was announced February 16 by NIH's Fogarty International Center.

"The program was one of the early priorities of Gerald Keusch, director of FIC, when he took office in October of 1998," said Sharon Hrynkow deputy director of the center.

The new program, called International Clinical, Operational and Health Services Research and Training Award (ICOHRTA), is funded at the $3 million level. It is aimed in part at dealing with the findings of the World Health Organization(WHO) study on the Global Burden disease. According to WHO, by 2020 more than 60% of the burden of disease in the world will be from non-communicable causes, such as alcoholism, suicides, homicides and traffic injuries and deaths.

The awards are $250,000 for five years for full programs and $100,000 for three years for developmental programs.

"We want programs that will build a capacity in the developing world to conduct clinical, operational, health services and prevention science research necessary to measure incidence and prevalence of non communicable diseases and chronic conditions," said Hrynkow.

According to Hrynkow, FIC hopes to launch a similar program next year to address the same issues in low- and medium-income countries that will result from new and re-emerging infections.

The ICOHRTA award is a partnership between FIC and five other NIH Institutes: The National Institute on Mental Health; The National Institute on Drug Abuse; The National Institute on Aging; The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine; and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.

ICOHRTA supports training to facilitate collaborative, multidisciplinary, international clinical, operational, health services and prevention science research between U.S. institutions and those in developing countries, as well as emerging democracies of Eastern Europe, Russia, and the Newly Independent States (NIS).

The WHO report, "The Global Burden of Disease" is available at http://www.who.int/msa/mnh/ems/dalys/intro.htm#intro

The ICOHRTA RFA from FIC is available at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-TW-01-003.html