To mark its 50th anniversary, the Foundation is organizing an International Meeting at the Les Pensières Center for Global Health on the shores of Lake Annecy. The aim of this day is to highlight new collaborative international approaches for fighting the increased risk of epidemics.
The threat of infectious disease is ever present, accounting for nearly 17 million victims each year, most of whom are children in developing countries. This threat is now taking on a new dimension in light of an increasing number of conflicts, demographic explosion, massive migrations of populations, accelerating global exchanges of all kinds and climate change – a context for which humans are largely responsible.
Traditional top-down approaches have demonstrated their limited efficacy in combating infectious diseases. They must now give way to new, local initiatives, conducted with and for the residents of those communities. Multidisciplinary approaches to global health go beyond merely treating patients, encompassing everything in the environment that impacts patients.
France has a role to play in this global fight, due to its expertise in infectious disease, Pasteurian tradition and the historical global influence of French medicine. As such, it needs to reassert its position and ensure it is an integral part of the wider framework of international health diplomacy, which is yet to be formed. The Foundation is ready to commit to this cause and provide its expertise in biology in the field.
To this end, over 150 scientists, researchers, doctors, biologists, humanitarian players and representatives from international organizations, hailing from West Africa, Asia, Latin America, Madagascar, Haiti and the Middle East are meeting together today to share their experiences at three round tables dedicated to key challenges:
- Epidemic risks in developing countries, chaired by Professor Christian Bréchot, President of Institut Pasteur
- New dynamics in health capacity building: leveraging local resources, chaired by Professor Ogobara Doumbo, Director of the Malaria Research and Training Centre, Faculty of Medicine, University of Bamako, Mali
- The global health approach: bringing vulnerable populations more than medical care, chaired by Dr. Jean William Pape, Founder and Director of the GHESKIO Centers, Haiti
See the full schedule of the round tables
Alain Mérieux, President of the Mérieux Foundation, explains:
“As healthcare players from around the globe, we know each other, we respect each other and we want and know how to work together. Yet we need a banner that can be widely deployed on an international scale. France needs to reassert itself globally and thereby improve its coordination of active national forces. We do, of course, need additional resources, but above all, we need a long-term vision and determination that are shared by all French stakeholders from both the public and private sectors. This coordination is essential in order to effectively work with other international partners and advance global health. This spirit of partnership should prevail between States, as it already exists between Africa, France and China.”
A single model for action to combat infectious diseases
For the past 50 years, the Mérieux Foundation has been committed to fighting infectious diseases affecting developing countries by strengthening their clinical biology capabilities.
Without diagnostics, medicine is blind. The Mérieux Foundation has therefore made its commitment to diagnostics the driving force behind its work. Diagnostics are an essential part of the healthcare chain and an invaluable tool for identifying pathogens responsible for disease and prescribing suitable treatment. They are therefore key to fighting bacterial resistance and, more globally, indispensable for disease surveillance and control.
The Foundation is focusing its actions on:
- Creating and equipping laboratories of excellence, the Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratories;
- Around these reference laboratories, renovating clinical laboratories in the field to give local populations access to quality diagnostics;
- On-site training of new generations of healthcare players in these countries;
- Rolling out international applied research programs, coordinated by its GABRIEL research network;
- Building international research and diagnostic networks worldwide;
- Developing global health programs to treat the most vulnerable, namely mothers and children.
Presided by Alain Mérieux, the Mérieux Foundation has public interest status and carries out its actions in concert with Fondation Christophe et Rodolphe Mérieux, an independent family foundation created in 2001 under the aegis of the Institut de France. Fondation Christophe et Rodolphe Mérieux is a 30% shareholder of the Institut Mérieux and is the sole beneficiary of the dividends paid out by the Institut.
The Mérieux Foundation employs over 100 people working in France and in developing countries and dedicates an annual budget of nearly €25 million to its actions in the field. Close to half this budget is provided by the family.
The Foundation has integrated research teams in its laboratories in Lyon and in Beijing, in a joint research unit – the Christophe Mérieux Laboratory – created with the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.
A long-term collaborative philosophy
The Mérieux Foundation promotes multi-skill international collaborations and partnerships. It also works with major foundations, universities, humanitarian organizations and public and private research centers worldwide.
Operating in the field, it works both with and for local players, in close cooperation with health authorities and ministries. It transfers ownership of the facilities it creates to these partners, continuing to work with them over the long term through its collaborative networks. This is specifically the case of laboratories in Mali, Laos, Cambodia, Haiti, Lebanon, Madagascar, Bangladesh and Brazil, which are managed autonomously.
Sustainable action
To celebrate 50 years of commitment, the Foundation is reaffirming its priorities, namely:
- continuing to expand its global network of laboratories of excellence, the Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratories,
- taking a global health approach with its partners to help the most vulnerable populations.
In his speech, Alain Mérieux reminds us that:
“The Pasteurian message is more relevant than ever. We need to bring all areas of expertise together to create a shield against infectious diseases. To this end, we need biology combining diagnostics and vaccination, integrated into a more global approach to health, in which hygiene and many other factors are of crucial importance. Without borders between countries and religions and without borders between human and veterinary medicine.”
A look back over 50 years of action
The Mérieux Foundation was created in 1967 by Dr. Charles Mérieux in memory of his father, Marcel Mérieux, a student of Louis Pasteur and founder of the Institut Mérieux.
Its mission was to fight against the threat of infectious disease in developing countries by fostering North-South dialogue and playing a role in structuring prevention policies in the field, in particular through vaccination. Progress was made in a number of areas, including child vaccination programs in Africa, the creation of the Agence de Médicine Préventive (AMP) and Bioforce, together with numerous international conferences focusing on public health issues such as HIV. The Foundation also created high-level international training courses in vaccinology, diagnostics and, more recently, epidemiology.
In 1999, it founded the Jean Mérieux P4 (BSL4) Laboratory, carrying out cutting-edge research in the fight against dangerous emerging pathogens, the first laboratory of its kind in Europe.
Later, in the 2000’s, under the impetus of Dr. Christophe Mérieux, the Foundation took a new direction in the field, creating a network of Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratories, with the support of Fondation Christophe et Rodolphe Mérieux. Eight laboratories have now been established in Mali, Laos, Cambodia, Haiti, Lebanon, Madagascar, Bangladesh and Brazil.
Around these reference laboratories, it has renovated over 30 hospital laboratories to increase access for local populations.
The foundation is training new generations of biologists, research scientists and laboratory technicians, including the BAMS training course, initiated in Mali in 2007, then in Haiti and expanding to Madagascar and Laos.
In the field of research, Fondation Christophe et Rodolphe Mérieux established the Christophe Mérieux Prize 11 years ago. The prize, worth €500,000, is awarded each year to field researchers working to combat infectious diseases.
RESAOLAB, a program in West Africa, supported at its inception by Agence Française de Développement, is particularly representative of the Foundation’s capacity building activities through training and applied research. Seven countries and 1,000 laboratories in West Africa have benefited from the program. During the Ebola epidemic, members were able to come together rapidly and effectively in response to the outbreak.
As part of its global health approach to support mothers and children, the Mérieux Foundation and Fondation Christophe et Rodolphe Mérieux stepped in to assist their partners in Haiti, after the earthquake and are currently active in the Middle East, helping refugees.
Key figures
- Working in 19 countries
- 29 biology training centers built or renovated
- A network of 19 applied research units
- Over 25 collaborative research programs
- 13 laboratories built
- 31 hospital laboratories renovated
- 12 conferences
- 11 courses and training programs
- Over 100 employees in 13 countries
- Close to a 25 million euro budget
Download the Mérieux Foundation projects related to the conference themes
Contact
Mérieux Foundation
Koren Wolman-Tardy
Tel: +33 6 13 94 51 14
E-mail: koren.wolman-tardy@fondation-merieux.org