The decision follows the maiden board meeting of the National Center for Vector Borne Diseases held under the chairmanship of Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah.
Vector-borne diseases are illnesses caused by an infectious microbe that is transmitted to people by blood-sucking arthropods.
The arthropods that most commonly serve as vectors include blood sucking insects such as mosquitos, fleas, lice, flies, bugs and blood sucking arachnids including mites and ticks.
Liverpool University professor Dr. Janet Hemingway, who is also director of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, was also present at the meeting held in Riyadh on Saturday.
In April, the Ministry of Health, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC) launched a new venture to increase the global ability to control major infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue.
With $5.5 million as seed funding from the Kingdom, the three organizations established a joint research center with the mission of improving health through cutting edge research that will result in the development and delivery of innovative ways to control, monitor and evaluate insect borne diseases that are a major threat in the Gulf region and around the world.
"As part of a larger effort to build national and regional capacity in science and technology, it was decided to set up this center in Jazan, which is a breeding point for some tropical diseases," Health Ministry spokesman Dr. Khalid Al-Mirghalani said.
Besides the laboratory in Jazan, the spokesman said the board also decided to establish six research projects to monitor and control vector-borne diseases such as rift valley fever, malaria and dengue. The study will focus especially on the sensitivity of mosquitos to insecticides, the most effective way to use a spray without adversely affecting the environment, the response to anti-viruses and an integrated study of malaria and its complications, methods and modern methods to strengthen surveillance.
He said the proposed laboratory will be fully furnished with the latest equipment and manned by trained local and international staff.
This is the first center of its kind in the Middle East and aims to respond to the needs of the Kingdom in the reduction or elimination of various vector-borne diseases. In addition to improving the health situation in the Kingdom and the region, he said the center would also establish a national registry of tropical diseases.
According to Hemingway, the Joint Center will rapidly establish an international standard research portfolio by utilizing the strengths in Liverpool and from within the IVCC consortium to seed the joint center and making provisions for capacity development at PhD, master’s and short course level to expand the cadre of qualified staff that the center can draw on.
“This center will not only be a research institute of the highest international standard, it will push forward the frontiers of science in order to make an important contribution to global health.”
The first phase has started with the recruitment and training of professional staff and development of a cutting-edge laboratory facility in Jazan. The first major joint project will be to develop an Arabic version of the Malaria Decision Support System for the Arab speaking world.
The majority of the center’s activity will focus on conducting high quality translational research in vector-borne disease control to generate new control tools, diagnostics and IT systems relevant to the national and regional programs. With a special focus on malaria and dengue, operational research that optimizes prevention and treatment methods will also be a priority.
The Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine is the world’s oldest tropical medicine research Institute and a world leader in translational research in the health and life sciences. The IVCC was established in 2005, with an initial large-scale award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation aiming to stimulate translational research between academia and industry to develop new products for insect borne disease control.
