After Malaria Is Controlled, What's Next?†

Walker, David H.

We must strive to identify opportunities that do not necessarily bear the label tropical diseases but can be justified to use to study and develop tropical disease countermeasures, such as we have done for the tropical pathogens that are on the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention priority list of biothreats. As Principal Investigator of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Western Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research, I have a program of research that has included tropical disease agents, such as arthropod-borne alphaviruses and flaviviruses, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, Ebola and Marburg filoviruses, Rift Valley fever virus, Nipah and Hendra viruses, Lassa and Junin arenaviruses, Rickettsia prowazekii, Burkholderia pseudomallei, SARS coronavirus, cryptosporidium, Coxiella burnetii, Yersinia pestis, and Brucella melitensis. These efforts have developed candidate vaccines for West Nile, chikungunya, eastern equine encephalitis, and brucellosis that have advanced through non-human primate testing and advanced a Rift Valley fever vaccine. Significant progress has also been made in developing low-cost point-of-care diagnostic devices.