Global Health Speaker Series 2023-2024
Wednesday, March 13, 2024, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Rotavirus is the leading cause of acute gastroenteritis in children under the age of five worldwide. It has a high mortality rate, especially in middle- and low-income countries. In 2016, India became the first Asian country to locally develop and nationally introduce rotavirus vaccines. The many lessons learnt from the rotavirus vaccine journey in India highlight the need local manufacture but also the critical nature of partnership to address vaccine inequity.
Dr. Gagandeep Kang is Director of the Enterics, Diagnostics, Genomics and Epidemiology Team in the Division of Global Health at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Until 2023, she was at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, India, leading a program on enteric infectious diseases and nutrition. Her group’s research, has over three decades, focused on the needs of India’s under-privileged populations. The work has resulted in surveillance that has informed government prioritization as well as in the evaluation of vaccines that are now being used around the world.
