Connecting the dots between many of the most prominent news stories and policy issues of 2014, the importance of the Sabin Vaccine Institute’s mission jumps off the page. Public health is now a leading issue that links to a broad variety of other concerns.
As the global community struggles with the consequences of a lack of vaccines for deadly diseases, weak health systems, and the growing threat of disease transmission in an inter-connected world, Sabin’s work is more relevant today than at any other point in our organization’s 22-year history.
We are one of the world’s premier organizations working to increase basic immunization coverage using widely-available, but still under-utilized vaccines. Sabin also promotes the control and elimination of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) as a global health priority, advocating for the mobilization of existing medications to communities who need them most. Through our product development partnership, Sabin works to develop first-of-their-kind vaccines that will help prevent, control and eliminate a range of maladies affecting 2 billion of the planet’s poorest people.
The milestones that we highlight in this year’s annual report underscore the value that we place on collaboration and innovation to develop the political commitment, funding and technical resources required to strengthen immunization and NTD programs around the world. Working with a broad range of partners, we are relentless in our pursuit of approaches to provide everyone with access to vaccines and medicines needed to make stronger, healthier communities a reality.
This year’s annual report is dedicated to the memories of Dr. Ciro de Quadros and Morton P. Hyman, two giants who passed away in 2014. Ciro and Mort contributed immensely to Sabin’s mission through their leadership and vision. Their contributions are now part of the Sabin Vaccine Institute’s DNA and motivate us every day to do more to help vulnerable and neglected communities everywhere.
The Sabin Vaccine Institute works to achieve such a world by reducing needless human suffering from vaccine-preventable and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) by developing new vaccines, advocating for increased use of existing vaccines, and promoting expanded access to affordable medical treatments. See how Sabin contributed to an extraordinary year in global health.
Pioneering new
products to prevent
NTD infections
For 15 years, the Sabin Vaccine Institute Product Development Partnership (Sabin PDP) has filled this translational gap by pioneering the development and testing of low-cost vaccines to prevent or treat NTDs, which adversely impact 1 in 6 people worldwide, including more than half a billion children.
Working alongside global partners, the Sabin PDP conducts basic research, product development and clinical development for a pipeline that includes vaccines for human hookworm, schistosomiasis, ascariasis, trichuriasis, Chagas disease, cutaneous leishmaniasis and onchocerciasis, as well as emerging viral infections like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and West Nile virus.
The Sabin PDP is developing vaccines for hookworm and schistosomiasis—the NTDs with the highest disease burden as determined by the Global Burden of Disease Study.
Hookworm is a soil-transmitted helminth that is estimated to infect nearly 440 million people worldwide, and a major cause of anemia affecting maternal and child health in low-resource countries. Limitations with existing drug therapies to treat heavy hookworm infections, the problem of re-infection and the potential for drug resistance necessitate the development of other tools–such as a vaccine–to reduce the disease burden caused by this debilitating parasite.
The Sabin PDP achieved a major milestone in 2014 for its two hookworm vaccine candidates, Necator americanus-Aspartic Protease-1 (Na-APR-1) and Necator americanus-Glutathione-S-transferase-1 (Na-GST-1), expanding Phase 1 clinical trials to include a new site in Gabon.
In 2014, for the first time, the Sabin PDP initiated clinical testing for the human hookworm vaccine in endemic populations in Africa.
The Sabin PDP also initiated Phase 1 clinical trials in early 2015 to test the safety of a preventative vaccine for schistosomiasis, following the development of Schistosoma mansoni-Tetraspanin protein-2 (Sm-TSP-2), a promising new antigen. Schistosomiasis, a serious disease, particularly for children and adolescents, plagues 250 million people and is the world’s second leading parasitic killer after malaria. The vaccine candidate is currently being tested for safety in the United States.
The Sabin PDP will expand testing of the schistosomiasis vaccine candidate to endemic populations in Latin America and Africa.
The Sabin PDP continues
pre-clinical development for Chagas disease, leishmanisis, onchocerciasis, West Nile virus and SARS.
New funding received from the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund for “Adjuvant Technologies to Advance Chagas Disease Vaccine Development.“
Our efforts in the past year included target antigen selection, screening and early feasibility of expression, pre-clinical testing and evaluation, process development and characterization for these vaccine candidates.
The Sabin PDP will expand testing of the schistosomiasis vaccine candidate to endemic populations in Latin America and Africa.
In the past year, the Sabin PDP
conducted basic research that
has led to the discovery of six
new potential target antigens for
ascariasis and four new target antigens
for human hookworm infection.
The Sabin PDP is based in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas, at Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine.
Additionally, we have continued early assessments of candidate antigens for trichuriasis. All these activities are part of the evaluation of a multivalent vaccine that could help eliminate the burden on nearly one billion people threatened by all three soil-transmitted helminths.
The Sabin PDP will scale up target antigen selection, screening and early feasibility of expression, pre-clinical testing and evaluation, process development and characterization for these vaccine candidates.
Improving the delivery,
technical capacity and financing
of immunization programs
We work with national governments, inform policy makers, build networks, conduct research and train leaders, all with the goal of reducing the incidence of vaccine-preventable deaths to zero.
The Vaccine Advocacy and Education (VAE) program emphasizes the importance of equity in immunization levels as outlined in the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP). The GVAP is a policy/action framework to prevent millions of deaths by 2020 by achieving universal access to all vaccines.
In 2014, Dr. Jon Andrus was named Executive Vice President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute and Director of the VAE program.
Dr. Andrus joins us from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) with more than three decades of experience as a global health leader and a well-documented record for fostering collaboration among national governments and partners to expand access to vaccines for the world’s poorest people.
Click above to watch the video
Meet Dr. Jon Andrus, Sabin’s new Executive Vice President and Director of the Vaccine Advocacy and Education Program.
The Coalition against Typhoid (CaT) brings urgency and focus to the typhoid vaccine effort, readying countries to immunize those who need it most.
Facilitated by CaT’s efficient advocacy, a typhoid vaccine is anticipated to be prequalified by the World Health Organization (WHO) and available for public sector use an estimated 3-4 years sooner than previously anticipated.
The CaT Secretariat is located within Sabin and is a trusted voice within the typhoid community, coordinating Coalition members to assess vaccine demand and deliver a reliable, affordable vaccine.
the number of people who could be spared from typhoid by accelerating vaccine introduction
the estimated number of lives that could be saved by introducing a new vaccine sooner
In 2015, CaT will assess the burden of severe typhoid in three key countries to determine vaccine need.
The Sustainable Immunization Financing (SIF) program empowers countries to achieve country ownership of their immunization programs by developing new domestic financing and financial management practices.
SIF works with 22 partner countries to develop sustainable immunization financing solutions. SIF facilitates peer-to-peer exchanges to enable partner countries to learn from each other. For example, a 2014 visit to Mongolia sparked Ugandan officials to re-draft pending legislation to include explicit immunization financing provisions.
The WHO Joint Reporting Form (JRF) is the only source for annual spending data on routine immunizations—information that many countries have historically misreported. In 2014, SIF developed validation rules to reduce misreporting, which have improved data across Africa.
With assistance from SIF, a parliamentary coalition in the Democratic Republic of Congo secured commitments in 2014 from the majority of provinces to increase their immunization spending. Following the parliamentary interaction, immunization budget increases were noted in several provinces.
2014 Progress on Sustainable Immunization Financing
% of SIF Countries that Progressed in Three Program Areas
of SIF countries advanced immunization-related legislative projects or enacted legislation in partnership with SIF. *Excludes 3 countries that had enacted immunization laws prior to 2014
of SIF countries advanced new domestic financing arrangements or methods for their routine immunization programs in partnership with SIF.
of SIF countries improved expenditure-tracking systems over the previous year in partnership with SIF.
Through strategic peer-to-peer learning and institutional consensus building, SIF will support ongoing legislative projects in 13 countries and new domestic immunization financing arrangements in 6 countries by the end of 2015.
The International Association of Immunization Managers (IAIM), a project of Sabin, is the first international professional association for immunization managers, providing opportunities to connect, share solutions and gain the training they need to advance their programs.
Public health leaders have stated that better management of immunization programs is the key to expanding immunization coverage. IAIM is the first organization that specifically targets this need, providing immunization managers with management training in a marketplace dominated by technical training programs.
In 2014, IAIM facilitated its first three peer-to-peer exchanges, where immunization managers learned directly from peers in other countries who have conquered the very same challenges they were facing. IAIM also held its first joint regional meeting in 2014 for the Middle East and Africa. This meeting laid the groundwork for the first global conference in 2015, attended by 130 members from more than 70 countries. IAIM quadrupled its membership in 2014 to include nearly 200 immunization managers.
making it the largest network of immunization managers in the world.
IAIM is working to expand its membership at the subnational level in 2015.
Working with 24 countries to inform vaccine-introduction decisions using a data-driven approach tailored to the country’s needs and resources.
Sabin partners with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) on the ProVac Initiative to strengthen national capacity in developing countries to make evidence-based decisions for new vaccine introductions. Ultimately, this work will accelerate access to vaccines against pneumonia, diarrhea, cervical cancer and influenza in poor countries. Countries use ProVac methodology to form interdisciplinary teams which generate their own evidence, conduct economic analysis and communicate results to key decision makers.
ProVac has worked with disease modeling experts to develop tools that help countries make health decisions by calculating the cost of preventing a death from cervical cancer, influenza, hepatitis, rotavirus or pneumococcal disease.
Through an International Working Group (IWG), Sabin aims to expand the ProVac program from Latin America to other regions. To date, the IWG has field tested the ProVac methodology in nine countries around the world. In 2015, Sabin and PAHO colleagues are assessing ProVac’s historical effects on Latin American vaccine expenditures.
Sabin provides decision makers with the resources they need to introduce and sustain immunization programs.
Is a consortium of organizations dedicated to fighting dengue. DVI’s members use their expertise to accelerate the development and consideration of dengue vaccines. Sabin is the advocacy arm of DVI, disseminating scientific evidence on the burden of dengue to inform decisions objectively regarding dengue control.
In memory of Dr. Ciro de Quadros, in 2014, Sabin renamed its annual vaccinology course, now known as the Ciro de Quadros Vaccinology Course. The course brings together immunization managers and other immunology stakeholders from Latin America with leading experts in the field of vaccinology, while now honoring Dr. de Quadros’ leadership as an immunization champion.
Sabin served as the organizing secretariat for the Eleventh International Rotavirus Symposium in September 2014 in New Delhi, India. At the three-day conference, more than 600 experts from 56 countries examined new surveillance data and studies demonstrating the impact of vaccination for rotavirus, a leading cause of severe and fatal diarrhea in children under five worldwide.
Relieving the burden
of neglected tropical diseases
for people in poverty
Most people living in industrialized countries have never seen or heard of NTDs, since the diseases were eliminated as public health threats in developed countries many years ago. But they continue to plague more than 1.4 billion of the world’s poorest people—particularly in communities with no political or economic voice.
Although progress is being made, NTDs often do not feature prominently on health agendas, even in endemic countries. Despite the availability of free or low-cost drugs that can easily treat, and eventually control and eliminate, NTDs, more attention is still needed.
The Global Network is one of the leading advocacy initiatives in the fight against NTDs. Working with ministries of health, NGOs, the corporate sector and donor governments around the world, we raise the profile of NTDs by enlisting political leaders, celebrities and students to support government engagement, and developing multimedia materials to energize political and public support for the control and elimination of NTDs.
Our advocacy efforts currently focus on the national and state level in India and Nigeria. India has the highest single-country burden of NTDs in the world and Nigeria has the most in Africa. Success in these countries will be essential in achieving the WHO's 2020 control and elimination targets.
People with lymphatic filariasis (LF) often are debilitated and ostracized by their communities.
To call attention to LF, Global Network celebrity champion Abhishek Bachchan visited India’s eastern state of Orissa, garnering wide media coverage featuring an iconic moment: the first time a Bollywood star helped care for a person infected with LF.
Our 2014 advocacy work in India culminated in our collaboration with the Indian Ministry of Health & Family Welfare to develop a major communications campaign encouraging 458 million people to participate in India’s largest ever mass drug administration against lymphatic filariasis.
The campaign rolled out in 17 states in December using print, radio, cinema and TV spots. These campaign materials will be an important tool for the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare as it seeks to eliminate LF from India over the next few years.
The Global Network will continue to work with state governments in India to increase circulation of the multimedia campaign materials in advance of local mass drug administrations.
Since 2006, the Global Network has been one of the primary advocates promoting greater funding for NTD programs by key governments.
Working directly with policymakers, convening thought leaders and mobilizing students and other grassroots supporters, our advocacy is having a positive impact. The U.S. government has increased its annual NTD funding from $15 million to $100 million over the last eight years. Similarly impressive results have occurred in the United Kingdom.
Through our sister organization, Sabin Foundation Europe, we expanded engagement with the UK parliament on NTD issues by supporting speakers in two parliamentary debates and serving as one of the lead authors for the 2014 Annual Report of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Malaria and NTDs. Sabin Foundation Europe and the Global Network matched parliamentary engagement with grassroots fundraising by jointly raising funds which were dispersed in India to support control efforts for lymphatic filariasis.
At the grassroots level, university students have become a driving force behind the Global Network’s END7 campaign—dedicated to ending the seven most common NTDs by 2020—establishing campus chapters from Karachi, Pakistan to Austin, Texas to support the fight against NTDs, building a new generation of supporters dedicated to controlling and eliminating NTDs worldwide.
increase in annual NTD funding by the U.S. government over the last eight years
Thousands of students participated in END7 advocacy actions targeting the United States Congress, the United Nations and the WHO to increase funding and policy support for NTD treatment and prevention.
The Global Network is redoubling its advocacy efforts in support of increased U.S. funding for NTD programs with a growing number of END7 student groups and online advocates.
A major part of the Global Network’s mission is to build capacity for NTD advocacy in other countries.
The Global Network played a prominent role in forming the German NTD Coalition, a group of German-based advocates working to increase Germany’s share of international NTD funding. In addition, the Global Network succeeded in getting health ministers from the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) to include NTDs, for the first time, in their collective health agenda.
Due in part to the Global Network’s continued dialogue with the Group of 7 (G7) policymakers, the G7 announced that NTDs would be a priority of the 2015 summit agenda—an important milestone given that additional financial support is needed to achieve the goal of eliminating 10 NTDs by 2020.
Back in 2000, when the United Nations (UN) defined its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to help improve the world, NTDs were lumped in as “other diseases.” As new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for health are defined as part of the post-2015 agenda, the Global Network has worked with UN representatives and country partners, and has been instrumental in getting NTDs included within the SDGs.
The Global Network is continuing its work to ensure NTDs are appropriately recognized in the post-2015 development agenda and SDGs, with specific indicators to measure success.
Sabin has been a Charity
Navigator four-star charity
for nearly a decade.
Condensed Statement of Activity December 31, 2014 and 2013
Program Services
General, Administrative and Fundraising
Sabin's Board of Trustees and executive leadership are fully committed to responsible and effective stewardship of donor funding. For the eigth consecutive year, Sabin received Charity Navigator's highest rating possible for consistently executing our mission in a fiscally responsible way.
Condensed Statement of Financial Position December 31, 2014 and 2013
Vaccine Development
Vaccine Advocacy and Education
Global Network
The financial statements presented have been summarized from Sabin's audited financial statements. Sabin's full audit report, completed by Rogers & Co, LLP, is available at www.sabin.org.
Interim Chair
Vice President, Oncology R&D, GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals
Chief Executive Officer
President, Sabin Vaccine Institute;
Director, Sabin PDP, Sabin Vaccine Institute and Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development at Baylor College of Medicine
Executive Vice President, Sabin Vaccine Institute;
Director, Vaccine Advocacy and Education
Managing Director, Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases
Chief Operating Officer
Awards and Recognition
The Sabin Vaccine Institute awarded its 2014 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal Award to Dr. Mathuram Santosham for his pioneering role in the prevention of deadly H. influenzae type b (Hib) diseases, including pediatric bacterial meningitis and pneumonia. Dr. Santosham’s leadership in research, vaccine efficacy trials and advocacy to prioritize Hib vaccines saved millions of children’s lives worldwide.
In 2014, Sabin’s President, Peter Hotez, was named U.S. Science Envoy by the White House and the U.S. Department of State. In this role, Dr. Hotez will work with the international scientific community to stimulate increased scientific cooperation and foster economic prosperity. He is now laying the groundwork for establishing centers of excellence for regional vaccine development in the Middle East and North Africa.
Dr. Ciro de Quadros, Sabin’s Executive Vice President and Director of Vaccine Advocacy and Education, received the Public Health Hero of the Americas Award in 2014. The award is the highest honor bestowed by the PAHO, and recognizes de Quadros’ leadership in the eradication of polio from Latin America and the Caribbean.
Thank you to all of our partners. We are grateful for your support, which makes Sabin’s important work possible.
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© 2015 SABIN VACCINE INSTITUTE
All Rights Reserved
PHOTO CREDITS: Olivier Asselin; Baylor College of Medicine, National School of Tropical Medicine; Ali Carter; Mignonette Dooley; Anna Grove; Esther Havens; Limephoto; Anna Papuga; Mo Scarpelli; Lydia Silber; Vivek Singh, Getty Images; Clement Tardif; Evan Wilder DESIGN CREDIT: büro svenja DEVELOPMENT CREDIT: paperplane.co