February 19, 2020
 Coronavirus in Context, Part II ...
From a Washington Post article (02/02/2020)
Tuberculosis addendum from Neel Gandhi (2/11/20)
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# Cases |
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# Deaths |
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| COVID-19 (2019-2020) |
14,628 |
75,303* |
305 |
2,012* |
| SARS (2003) |
8,098 |
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774 |
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| Ebola (2014-2016) |
28,616 |
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11,310 |
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| Measles, worldwide (2018) |
9,769,400 |
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142,300 |
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| Flu, US (2019-2020 est) |
15M-21M |
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8.2-20K |
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| Tuberculosis (2018) |
10M |
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1.2M** |
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*Coronavirus figures updated on 2/19/20
- **"This equates to ~3,300 TB deaths every single day. Thus, from the day that the novel coronavirus was first reported (I believe that was 12/21/19, 53 days ago [as of 2/11/20]), 175,000 people have DIED of tuberculosis worldwide. That is 12 times higher than the number of people diagnosed with the novel coronavirus in the same time period."
- "And it's not like the HIV numbers are any better! If I have the numbers correct, each day in the US(!), 104 people are diagnosed with HIV! So since the coronavirus was discovered nearly 5,600 people in the US have been diagnosed with HIV! Where are the news stories about that (let alone the stats in the rest of the world!)?" (Neel Gandhi)
Kudos ...
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Katherine Bricker |
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Major Kudos to next-gen HIV researcher Katherine Bricker on scoring her very first NIH funding. (F31HD100265)!
Although we are better than we used to be at preventing vertical transmission of HIV, our efforts are not perfect and pediatric HIV continues to persist. Katherine Bricker, who is a PhD student in Ann Chahroudi's lab, is addressing this by using her NIH/NICHD F31 award to investigate an approach to HIV remission in infants and children using a novel animal model to perform controlled studies of an innovative immune-based approach (IL-21 as a Therapeutic to Reduce Immune Activation and Normalize Microbial Bysbiosis in SIV-infected and ART-suppressed Infant Macaques).
• Read More About Katherine's project
In Other News ....
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| Kristin Wall |
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Kristin Wall has received funding from the Department of International Development (DFID) for "Improving female genital schistosomiasis diagnosis within comprehensive reproductive health services in Zambia."
Female genital schistosomiasis (FGS) is a neglected but highly prevalent tropical disease that increases the risk of HIV infection in women.
According to WHO, FGS is not described in medical textbooks or nursing curricula in the countries where schistosomiasis is endemic and so remains highly prevalent and under-diagnosed due a low index of suspicion among health-care professionals.
Kristen will help fix this severe health disparity by using the DFID grant to develop and pilot test a an innovative, standardized diagnostic algorithm that clinicians can use to identify FGS and other common causes of genital ulcerative and inflammatory disease.
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Kim Workowski |
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Here are three items on every HIV clinician's wish list: 1) An antiretroviral that can be taken every 24 weeks instead of every 24 hours. 2) An antiretrovial that works even if you already have a long history of taking antiretrovirals. 3) An antiretroviral that works against multi-drug resistant strains of HIV.
Gilead Sciences, Inc. thinks that they may have the answer to ALL of the above and has recently awarded Kim Workowski funding for "A phase 2/3 study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of long acting capsid inhibitor GS-6207 in combination with an optimized background regimen in heavily treatment experienced people living with HIV-1 infection with multidrug resistance."
Bulletin Board...
Health Services Researcher Sought: CHOA
Evan Orenstein is looking for a health services researcher familiar with the RE-AIM framework to be a co-investigator on a 2 year STTR Phase 2grant application due April 5.
In Phase 1, the team developed a visual analytics dashboard to help health systems determine if their clinical decision support is improving quality outcomes (and if not, help them understand why not). In Phase 2, we are hoping to (1) establish generalizability of the software across institutions and use cases, (2) measure implementation effectiveness, and (3) assess adoption among potential new sites.
• Interested? Contact Evan Orenstein
(evan.orenstein@emory.edu)
Mentoring Moment... by the CFAR Developmental Core
Are you presenting a talk or poster at #CROI2020?
Join CFAR Senior Investigators, Jim Curran, Carlos del Rio, and Ann Chahroudi on Friday, February 28th at 9:00 AM to practice your oral and/or poster elevator speech and receive helpful feedback as you finalize your presentation.
Kimbi Hagen will also be on hand to provide email feedback on suggested science communication improvements to your slides / poster
Please note that posters do NOT need to be printed for this practice session; please just bring your draft poster file on a flash drive so we can project it.
Registration is required, and refreshments will be served. Feel free to share this invitation with postdocs, students, and other junior investigators on your research teams who have accepted abstracts.
Register HERE:
http://bit.ly/EmoryCROI2020
Another Mentoring Moment... by Sam Jenness
Network Modeling for Epidemics
Summer short course at the University of Washington
17-21 August, 2020
Network Modeling for Epidemics (NME) is a 5-day short course at the University of Washington that provides an introduction to stochastic network models for infectious disease transmission dynamics, with a focus on empirically based modeling of HIV transmission. It is a "hands-on" course, using the EpiModel software package in R (www.epimodel.org).
The course uses a mix of lectures, tutorials, and labs with students working in small groups. On the final day, students work to develop an EpiModel prototype model (either individually or in groups based on shared research interests), with input from the instructors, including the lead EpiModel software developer, Sam Jenness.
• Read More About It
• Questions: Contact Sam Jenness (samuel.m.jenness@emory.edu)
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