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ICDDR,B (formerly known as the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh) is an international health research organisation located in
Dhaka
Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city ...
, Bangladesh.
Dedicated to saving lives through research and treatment, ICDDR,B addresses some of the most critical health concerns facing the world today, ranging from improving
neonatal
An infant or baby is the very young offspring of human beings. ''Infant'' (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'unable to speak' or 'speechless') is a formal or specialised synonym for the common term ''baby''. The terms may also be used to ...
survival to
HIV/AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...
. In collaboration with academic and research institutions over the world, ICDDR,B conducts research, training and extension activities, as well as programme-based activities, to develop and share knowledge for global lifesaving solutions.
ICDDR,B is one of the leading research institutes of the Global South, releasing, according to the Thomson Reuters
Web of Science, 18 percent of the Bangladesh's publications.
ICDDR,B has a mix of national and international staff, including public health scientists, laboratory scientists, clinicians, nutritionists, epidemiologists, demographers, social and behavioural scientists, IT professionals, and experts in emerging and re-
emerging infectious disease
An emerging infectious disease (EID) is an infectious disease whose incidence has increased recently (in the past 20 years), and could increase in the near future. The minority that are capable of developing efficient transmission between human ...
s, and
vaccine
A vaccine is a biological Dosage form, preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease, infectious or cancer, malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verifie ...
sciences.
ICDDR,B is supported by about 55 donor countries and organisations, including Sweden (SIDA), Canada, UK, Bangladesh, USA, UN specialised agencies, foundations, universities, research institutes and private sector organisations and companies that share the centre's concern for the health problems of developing countries and who value its proven experience in helping solve those problems. The centre is governed by a distinguished multinational Board of Trustees comprising 17 members from all over the world.
History
ICDDR,B has its roots in the
SEATO
The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was an international organization for collective defense in Southeast Asia created by the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, or Manila Pact, signed in September 1954 in Manila, the Philipp ...
Cholera Research Laboratory formed in 1960. When Bangladesh became independent in 1971, activities were scaled down due to a scarcity of funds. Subsequently, a bilateral agreement was signed by Bangladesh and USAID for direct fund flow to the organisation. Until 1978, there were number research accomplishments such as ORS, Patho-Physiology of shigellosis, Rotavirus, uplifting family planning program etc. In 1978 proposal by an international group of scientists was put forward to elevate the organisation to an international research centre. The organisation was established in its current form via an ordinance promulgated by President Ziaur Rahman and then that was ratified in parliament in 1979. The centre has, among its other accomplishments, played a major role in the discovery and implementation of
oral rehydration therapy
Oral rehydration therapy (ORT) is a type of fluid replacement used to prevent and treat dehydration, especially due to diarrhea. It involves drinking water with modest amounts of sugar and salts, specifically sodium and potassium. Oral rehydrati ...
for the treatment of
diarrhoea
Diarrhea, also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having at least three loose, liquid, or watery bowel movements each day. It often lasts for a few days and can result in dehydration due to fluid loss. Signs of dehydration often begin wi ...
and
cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...
. Oral rehydration therapy is thought to have saved over 50 million people worldwide.
Since 1978, the centre has trained more than 27,000 health professionals from over 78 countries. Courses provide practical training in hospital management of
diarrhoeal diseases
Diarrhea, also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having at least three loose, liquid, or watery bowel movements each day. It often lasts for a few days and can result in dehydration due to fluid loss. Signs of dehydration often begin wi ...
,
epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population.
It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidenc ...
,
biostatistics
Biostatistics (also known as biometry) are the development and application of statistical methods to a wide range of topics in biology. It encompasses the design of biological experiments, the collection and analysis of data from those experime ...
,
family planning
Family planning is the consideration of the number of children a person wishes to have, including the choice to have no children, and the age at which they wish to have them. Things that may play a role on family planning decisions include marita ...
, demographic surveillance, and child survival strategies. As child deaths from disease have been reduced, deaths from injuries, such as drowning, have become a proportionately greater threat to child survival.
Awards and recognition
In 2017, ICDDR,B won the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize with $2 million in prize money in recognition of the institute's innovative approach to solving global health issues impacting the world's most impoverished communities. In 2016, former UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon
Ban Ki-moon (; ; born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was his country's Minister ...
noted
that ICDDR,B's innovations are directly contributing to sustainable development, helping reduce infant, child and maternal mortality significantly in Bangladesh and beyond.
In 2001, ICDDR,B received the first
Gates Award for Global Health from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2002 the first Pollin Prize for Pediatric Research was awarded to Drs. Norbert Hirschhorn, Nathaniel Pierce, Dilip Mahalanabis and David Nalin for their contributions to the development and implementation of oral rehydration therapy. The work of Drs. Hirschhorn and Nalin was done at the Cholera Research Laboratory beginning in 1967. Dr.
Dilip Mahalanabis
Dilip Mahalanabis (12 November 1934 – 16 October 2022) was an Indian paediatrician known for pioneering the use of oral rehydration therapy to treat diarrhoeal diseases. Mahalanabis had begun researching oral rehydration therapy in 1966 as a r ...
made his major contribution to oral rehydration therapy in 1971 while working in Calcutta and served as Director of Clinical Research at ICDDR,B in the 1990s. In 2006, the
Prince Mahidol Award
The Prince Mahidol Award ( th, รางวัลสมเด็จเจ้าฟ้ามหิดล) is an annual award for outstanding achievements in medicine and public health worldwide. The award is given by the Prince Mahidol Award Found ...
for public health was given jointly to Drs. Mahalanabis,
Richard A. Cash
Richard Alan Cash (born June 9, 1941) is an American global health researcher, public health physician, and internist. He is a Senior Lecturer in International Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
He is an alumnus ...
,
David Nalin
David R. Nalin (born April 21, 1941) is an American physiologist, and Pollin Prize for Pediatric Research and Prince Mahidol Award, a.k.a. Mahidol Medal winner. Nalin had the key insight that oral rehydration therapy (ORT) would work if the vo ...
, and
Stanley Schultz
Stanley G. Schultz (October 26, 1931 – October 23, 2014) was an American physician and scientist whose work led to the development of oral rehydration therapy. He held the Fondren Family Chair in Cellular Signaling and the H. Wayne Hightower Di ...
for their work on
oral rehydration therapy
Oral rehydration therapy (ORT) is a type of fluid replacement used to prevent and treat dehydration, especially due to diarrhea. It involves drinking water with modest amounts of sugar and salts, specifically sodium and potassium. Oral rehydrati ...
. In 2007, ICDDR,B received the Leadership Award from the
Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics
The Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics (APUA) is a non-profit organization founded in 1981 by Stuart B. Levy (1938–2019), Professor of Medicine at Tufts University and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.
APUA's mission is to streng ...
.
It won the $2 million 2017 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize from the
Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation is an American non-profit charitable foundation, established in 1944 by hotel entrepreneur Conrad Hilton. It remained relatively small until his death on January 3, 1979, when it was named the principal beneficiary ...
.
Innovations and achievements
1960: Cholera Research Laboratory begins.
1963: Population surveillance – the world's longest running field site starts in
Matlab Bazaar.
1966: Cholera fatality reduced to less than 1%.
1967: Work leading to the development of oral rehydration therapy begins.
1969: Relationship between breastfeeding and menstruation resumption is demonstrated.
1974: Tetanus toxoid vaccine recommended for pregnant women, reducing neonatal mortality by 30%.
1978: Rotavirus identified as the most common cause of diarrhoea in infants in Bangladesh, and as highest priority for new vaccines.
1982: Rice-based ORS shown to be fully effective alternative to glucose-based ORS and preferred for routine use at ICDDR,B.
1982: Matlab Maternal Child Health and Family Planning project shares its success in lowering national fertility rates with the Government of Bangladesh.
1983: Epidemic Control and Preparedness Programme begins.
1984: Full Expanded Programme on Immunization data is validated (and begins). Benefit of
measles vaccine
Measles vaccine protects against becoming infected with measles. Nearly all of those who do not develop immunity after a single dose develop it after a second dose. When rate of vaccination within a population is greater than 92%, outbreaks of ...
demonstrated, leading to inclusion in EPI.
1985: Cholera vaccine trial launched.
1988: Treatment of, and research into, acute respiratory infections/pneumonia begins.
1989: Matlab record keeping system, specially adapted for Government use, extended to the national family planning programme.
1993: New Vibrio cholerae 0139 (Bengal strain) identified and characterised by ICDDR,B.
1994: ICDDR,B epidemic response team goes to Goma, Zaire to assist cholera-stricken Rwandan refugees and helps reduce case fatality rate from as high as 49% to less than 1%.
1995: Maternal immunisation with pneumococcal vaccine shown likely to protect infants up to 22 weeks.
1998: HIV sero-surveillance begins in Bangladesh on behalf of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Bangladesh.
1999: Protocolized Management of Severely Malnourished Children decreases case fatality from 20% to less than 5%. Published in Lancet.
2000: ICDDR,B assists Government of Bangladesh with control of major dengue epidemic in Dhaka.
2000: International, peer-reviewed and indexed ICDDR,B journal is renamed Journal of Health, Population, and Nutrition.
2001: Studies on violence against women in Bangladesh are initiated.
2001: ICDDR,B opens the first tuberculosis laboratory in Bangladesh.
2001: Oral cholera vaccine, tested at ICDDR,B, is approved for use by WHO.
2001: Studies on the effects of arsenic on health begin.
2002: ICDDR,B studies establish that zinc treatment of diarrhoea reduces under-5 mortality by 50%.
2002: First HIV voluntary counselling and testing unit in Bangladesh opens at ICDDR,B.
2003: New research programmes on HIV/AIDS and Poverty & Health.
2004: Studies on preventing high levels of childhood drowning begin.
2005: ICDDR,B team assists in post-tsunami health needs assessment in Sri Lanka.
2006: Dispersible zinc tablets launched through unique public-private partnership in national scale-up to treat diarrhoea in children under five years.
2006: Studies on abortion and menstrual regulation initiated.
2007: Oral cholera vaccine Dukoral, tested at Matlab in 1985, launched in Bangladesh.
2008: Introduce SHEBA (an integrated Hospital Management System) and start the journey as a paperless hospital
2009: ICDDR,B opens a ward for ARI (Swine Flu) patients.
2010: ICDDR,B celebrates 50 years of operations. Sends teams to combat deadly cholera outbreaks in Pakistan and Haiti. Research team discovers and characterise the "TLC phage" which changes the chromosomal sequence of the cholera bacterium, enabling incoming toxigenic CTX phage genome to be incorporated and transforming a harmless strain of
''V. cholerae'' to a dangerous killer. Issued its first patent from the Director of United States Patent and Trademark Office (United States Patent US7638271) for inventing a new diagnostic method for tuberculosis, called
Antibodies from lymphocyte secretions
The antibodies from lymphocyte secretions (ALS) assay is an immunological assay to detect active diseases like tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid etc. Recently, ALS assay nods the scientific community as it is rapidly used for diagnosis of Tuberculos ...
or ALS.
2011: "Continuum of Care" (a concept involving a system that guides and tracks patients over time through a comprehensive array of health services) approach achieves 36% drop in perinatalmortality.
2014: Oral cholera vaccine in Bangladesh was found to have significant impact on cholera incidence when delivered through Bangladesh's existing immunisation infrastructure.
2015: ICDDR,B published a three-year strategic plan 2015–2018, aiming to achieve broader objectives by developing a greater international focus, promoting the growth of South-South collaborations and increasing engagement with the private sector.
2016: Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged
that ICDDR,B interventions are directly contributing to sustainable development, which helped to significantly reduce infant, child and maternal mortality in Bangladesh and beyond.
2017: ICDDR,B wins the 2017 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize
for its commitment to solving key public health problems facing the world's most vulnerable through innovative scientific research since 1960.
References
External links
Official websiteICDDR,B hosts the secretariat of Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI)Σ
{{DEFAULTSORT:International Centre For Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh
International research institutes
1960 establishments in East Pakistan
Organisations based in Dhaka
Medical research institutes in Bangladesh