Vaccines essential for reducing burden of infectious diseases, says Gagandeep Kang

31/08/2020 1 Comment read Gender, Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 31.08.2020 (SciDev.Net): Internationally renowned for her inter-disciplinary research on transmission, development and prevention of enteric infections and their sequelae in children in India, Gagandeep Kang is the first Indian woman scientist to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. She is a member of the WHO’s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety.

Currently, a professor of microbiology in the Division of Gastrointestinal Sciences in her alma mater, the Christian Medical College Vellore, Kang grew up in a science-oriented household, reading Isaac Asimov. She attended 10 schools in 12 years as her father, a mechanical engineer in the Indian Railways, was transferred across northern and eastern India.

The frequent transfers taught her to be adaptable and learn outside the classroom. She spent time learning on her own with help from her parents. They would visit mines to understand about minerals and chemicals. Her father would bring home lenses, concave mirrors and Woulfe bottles and they set up their own lab and herbarium.

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Profs. Tania Sorrell & Kevin Marsh on emerging infectious diseases

17/06/2010 0 Comments read Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Professor Tania C Sorrell, Director, Sydney Institute for Emerging Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity and Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney; and Senior Physician in Infectious Diseases at Sydney West Area Health Service.

What are the new and emerging infectious diseases threatening the world in the coming decade?

In the context of emerging infectious diseases in what might happen in the next 10 years, we are really thinking in terms of two major problems – outbreaks which might develop into pandemics and the continuing increase in anti-microbial resistance and hence the dual problems of preventing and managing outbreaks and treating infections which are not responsive to the drugs we have available.

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New Infectious Diseases a Challenge to MDG Success

11/06/2010 0 Comments read Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

SYDNEY, 11.06.2010 (IPS) – While successful immunisation programmes worldwide have saved millions of lives, the threat of new infectious diseases and drug-resistant strains of existing diseases are posing a major challenge to governments, especially in developing regions like Asia, in meeting their commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

“We have two major problems in the context of emerging infectious diseases in the coming decade – outbreaks, which might develop into pandemics, and the continuing increase in anti-microbial resistance,” Professor Tanya Sorrell, director of the newly established Sydney Institute of Emerging Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity, based at University of Sydney, tells IPS.

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