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Q&A: US Global Health Work in Kenya with Kemy Monahan

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Katherine E. “Kemy” Monahan, a career foreign service officer steeped in development issues and an economist and lawyer by training, was appointed as deputy executive director of the Global Health Initiative (GHI) in July. She talked to GHTC’s Breakthroughs blog about her impressions of the US global health work in Kenya, the importance of research, and the critical need now to make the case to Congress for investing in global health.

October 11, 2011 by Emily Halnon

Katherine E. “Kemy” Monahan, a career foreign service officer steeped in development issues and an economist and lawyer by training, was appointed as deputy executive director of the Global Health Initiative (GHI) in July. She had been the Brussels-based Counselor for International Development and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Representative to the European Union. She took up her new post in late September and just three weeks into her job traveled to Kenya. On Tuesday, after seeing a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) research site in the Kibera slum, she talked to GHTC’s Breakthroughs blog on site about her impressions of the US global health work in Kenya, the importance of research, and the critical need now to make the case to Congress for investing in global health.

Katherine E. “Kemy” Monahan, a career foreign service officer Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/PATH

Q: What was most memorable about your visit to Kibera?

A: There is such a contrast. You see this very poor slum that is far from an ideal environment and then you see very healthy mothers and children inside their homes. That’s a real tribute to the work that CDC and Carolina for Kibera are doing here. When people do get sick, they can go to a clinic here, thanks to these organizations.

I met a grandmother who was part of a CDC study. The CDC worker found out that the child had a very high fever, and the grandmother didn’t know about it. They took him to the clinic, gave him medicine, and the grandmother said he was better immediately. She was very happy.

Q: What is the benefit of the CDC research in Kibera?

A: The grandmother said it well. We asked her what the project was about. She said that the CDC was trying to find more out about the diseases that are most dangerous, that they would tell the Ministry of Health their results, and that would be used to help the neighborhood and the whole country. She was exactly right. CDC really has educated people well about the study.

Q: Where does research fit into the priorities of the Global Health Initiative (GHI)?

A: GHI is very focused on efficiencies, on all the agencies working well together, and working with other stakeholders such as the host government, other donors, and NGOs. If I think of the one thing that has been most important in cost savings and advancements in global health, it would be research and development (R&D). Research and development can create whole new paradigms. It can cut costs dramatically with one new vaccine, or one new drug, or one new test. R&D is expensive on the front end but very cost effective once you start implementing it. It’s so important that we remember this is a long-term investment. There are examples all over PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), with the pneumococcal vaccine, and the many new innovations now being tested, such as microbicides research.

Q: Like many programs in the US federal budget, global health funds are under threat. A House bill would cut $700 million from the administration’s request. How do you make the case for global health in these times?

A: There are so many reasons why GHI is good for Americans. It’s not just a moral imperative. It’s not just a reflection of American values—although it is both of those. It’s also about national security, making sure we know how to fight epidemics, helping keep other countries strong. It’s really value for our money. It’s a small percentage of the budget that really is making a difference.

Q: If $700 million is cut, what is lost?

A: We would not be able to do so many of the things that Americans support. We may not be able to do all the work in preventing malaria, for instance, or we may have to cut back on pre-natal care that is so vital for the health of pregnant women. The choices would be very hard.

The United States takes its commitments very seriously. The world respects us for meeting our commitments. America’s word is a bond, something to be proud of. We don’t want to lose that pride when it comes to meeting our commitments in global health, especially when they are so meaningful to people around the world.

About the author

Emily HalnonGHTC

Emily Halnon is a communications associate at GHTC.

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Research Roundup: First-of-its-kind mpox vaccine trial, New treatment-resistant malaria drug, Genetically modified mosquitos

Written by Hannah Sachs-Wetstone / GHTC
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Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. A new, first-of-its-kind trial will assess the safety and immunogenicity of Bavarian Nordic’s MVA-BN mpox vaccine in pregnant and breastfeeding women and infants under two years old, two populations at risk of severe complications from mpox but not currently eligible for vaccination. MVA-BN is the only vaccine for mpox prequalified by the World Health Organization and is currently approved for healthy adults and adolescents, but additional data from this trial could help expand access for additional key populations amid the ongoing mpox outbreak. The trial, which will start early next year, is jointly funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Global Health EDCTP3.Researchers from the University of Glasgow have developed a new drug that could help combat the spread of treatment-resistant malaria, as the disease continues to kill more than 600,000 people every year and Plasmodium falciparum, a mosquito vector that spreads malaria, grows increasingly resistant to artemisinin, the frontline malaria treatment. The drug, adapted from a cancer treatment approach, works by permanently disabling a protein that P. falciparum uses to duplicate itself in humans. The researchers behind the drug think it could be more effective than current drugs at all stages of malaria infection, potentially with only one dose.A research team from the University of California, Santa Barbara has found a way to potentially reduce the spread of mosquito-borne diseases by disrupting male mosquitoes’ ability to hear, which is essential for them to mate and breed. Male mosquitoes rely on the sound of female mosquitoes’ wingbeats in order to find and mate with them. By altering a genetic pathway that male mosquitoes use for hearing, the researchers were able to stop them mating entirely, preventing female mosquitoes, the ones that spread diseases to humans, from having babies and reducing overall mosquito populations. Specifically, the researchers studied Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which spread diseases including dengue, yellow fever, and Zika.
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Research Roundup: Noninvasive malaria test, Mpox vaccine trial for kids, Novel class of antimicrobial agents

Written by Hannah Sachs-Wetstone / GHTC
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Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. Recently published research found that a new, noninvasive test for malaria could provide a more reliable, safer, quicker, and more sensitive diagnostic option in low- and middle-income countries. The Cytophone, a tabletop printer-sized device, uses targeted lasers and ultrasound to detect malaria-infected cells in the bloodstream via a small, noninvasive probe placed on the back of a person’s hand. Malaria-infected red blood cells accumulate a by-product with unique properties that can be distinguished from normal red blood cells when they pass through a laser. The test, which provides results within minutes, was found to be as good or better at detecting symptomatic Plasmodium falciparum malaria infections than the current gold standard point-of-care methods for malaria testing, which require blood samples and special laboratory equipment. The next phase of testing the device will also investigate whether the device can detect and distinguish between other species.Last Tuesday, Bavarian Nordic announced the start of a clinical study of the MVA-BN® mpox/smallpox vaccine in children between 2 and 11 years old, who are highly vulnerable to infection during the ongoing mpox emergency. The study, which currently has sites in the Democratic Republic of Congo and plans to include sites in Uganda as well, is investigating the safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine in children compared to adults. Last month, the World Health Organization prequalified the vaccine for adolescents between 12 and 17 years old, following the European Medicines Agency’s approval for this age group. Results from the new trial could support an extension of the current approval.Researchers have identified a novel class of antimicrobial agents known as encrypted peptides that play a key role in the immune system’s response to bacterial infections, opening up new possibilities for combating drug-resistant infections as antimicrobial resistance continues to grow as a global health threat. The immune system is traditionally thought to rely primarily on proteins explicitly linked to immune functions, but this new research reveals that other structural proteins contribute to antimicrobial defenses. Leveraging the immune system’s natural defenses through these non-immune proteins could allow researchers to develop effective antibiotic therapies less prone to resistance.