In these difficult times, when the global health community is facing the dangers of an important new influenza pandemic, a new partnership is forming. The lancet, one of the world´s leading medical journals has announced its partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation and the China Medical Board. Together they will develop a major series to evaluate the state of public health in Southeast Asia.
The launch of the series is programmed during the Prince Mahidol Award Conference, in January 2011. It will underline the region´s distinctiveness, diversity, as well as the successes and difficulties in the field of health. There will be a main focus on the rising risks of pandemics. It will highlight how initiatives such as the Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance Network can thrive in building effective capacity and teamwork between health institutions and ministries across the region.
Dr. Suwit Wibulpolprasert, meeting attendee and senior advisor to Thai Ministry of Public Health, explains: “This series will be a very exciting and important step towards enhancing the level of regional cooperation and solidarity on health issues”.
Leaders in the field of public health from the Southeast Asia and other regions will determine the precise topic and content of the series. They will comprise around twelve papers and commentaries. Forty leaders in the field already attended a preliminary two-day meeting. They will commission a series of papers with regional scientists as the lead authors.
“The region has so much to offer to the outside world in terms of learning and future directions,” mentions Dr. Lincoln Chen, event organizer and President of the China Medical Board. “The Series will help do this in a very effective way.”
“We see this series as much more than a research process,” comments Dr. Mushtaque Chowdhury, Associate Director of the Rockefeller Foundation. “By bringing together leading experts from across the region, The Lancet Series can serve as a vehicle for fostering long-term collaboration to improve health equity in the region.”
Dr Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet, remarks: “For The Lancet, this work represents an important step in our efforts to move beyond being a conventional medical journal. We aim to partner with scientists, policymakers, and institutions to act as a catalyst for progressive health reforms in countries that face some of the toughest health predicaments in the world today. We want to work with colleagues in Southeast Asia to be a laboratory of evidence and policies, to review and test the best available data in order to deliver reliable advice to professionals on the frontlines of healthcare. This collaboration has the potential to identify important new directions in health for those living in Southeast Asia and I am very much looking forward to our joint work together.”
Written by Stephanie Brunner (B.A.)