On Thursday, March 22, 2007, Dr. Marc LaForce, director of the Meningitis Vaccine Project, will discuss the meningitis epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa and the challenges in developing a conjugate meningococcal vaccine. The presentation will begin at 8:30 a.m. at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service (295 Lafayette Street, 2nd Floor, Manhattan).
Introducing Dr. LaForce will be Dr. Martin Blaser, professor of internal medicine and chairman of the Department of Medicine, NYU Medical School, and professor of microbiology.
The Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP) is a Gates Foundation-sponsored partnership between the World Health Organization and the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health. MVP was established with the goal of developing an affordable conjugate meningococcal vaccine for Africa. MVP has developed a novel public-private consortium that includes a public laboratory in the United States and a major Indian vaccine manufacturer that has agreed to produce the vaccine at $0.40 per dose.
Among the topics Dr. LaForce will discuss are the anticipated impact of the project, and the potential for the MVP public-private model in developing other needed vaccines.
Dr. LaForce’s timely talk is cosponsored by Wagner’s Office of International Programs, the Health Policy and Management program at Wagner, NYU’s Master’s in Global Public Health program, and the Global Health Alliance at NYU.
- WHO: Dr. Mark LaForce, director of the Meningitis Vaccine Project, and Dr. Martin Blaser, chairman of the Department of Medicine, NYU Medical School.
- WHAT: Discussion of the challenges of developing affordable meningitis vaccines for Sub-Saharan Africa and other international contexts.
- WHERE: NYU Wagner, 295 Lafayette St., 2nd Floor, lower Manhattan.
- WHEN: Thursday, March 22, 2007, 8:30 a.m. - 10 a.m.