The PDVI Access Team is working on an important new document entitled Opportunities and Challenges Report: Making the Investment Case for Dengue Prevention and Control. This will be along the lines of the investment cases developed for other vaccines, including TB, Pneumococcal, Haemophilus Influenzae B (Hib), and Rotavirus. The Report will be different from these investment cases because it will be authored by a panel of inter-national experts from academia, industry, and product development partnerships and it will be a comprehensive look at the entire field of dengue control and prevention and not just about a particular vaccine candidate or candidates. The first issue of the report will be available at the end of 2008.

Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases (GSID), a consulting firm in San Francisco, California, led by Dr. Donald Francis has been working with PDVI to assess how the Initiative can best help biotech firms and emerging manufacturers in developing countries to develop, evaluate and introduce dengue vaccines. Assessments have been completed of Hawaii Biotech; the partnership of InViragen and Shantha Biotechnics; Instituto Butantan in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Biological E of Hyderabad, India; and Panacea of New Delhi, India. Butantan, Biological E and Panacea are licensees of the NIH live attenuated vaccines created through reverse genetics by Drs Brian Murphy and Steven Whitehead. As a result of these assessments PDVI is launching a program of collaboration with the firms to help in production, laboratory support, clinical trials and regulatory matters.

This important conference will take place at the Hilton Phuket Arcadia Resort & Spa in Phuket, Thailand, from 15-17 October 2008. The theme of this conference is "Global Innovation to Fight Dengue"

The Conference will serve as a forum for exchanging comprehensive information, practical experience, new skills and techniques and for conceptualizing and integrating approaches to the prevention and control of the disease.

Priorities for research needed to contain the spread of the virus and its vectors will be defined and agreed upon, all with the aim of reducing morbidity and mortality in endemic countries. Improved surveillance and better estimation of disease burden will be examined, along with methods of improving public commitment to the control and eventual elimination of the disease, a major threat to public health worldwide.

The Conference will consist of lectures by noted authorities, plenary sessions and symposia including invited speakers, oral and poster presentations and scientific and trade exhibitions.

Major topics will include pathophysiology, diagnosis, clinical management, epidemiological surveillance, laboratory aspects, vector biology, ecology and control, advocacy for social and community commitment, viro-molecular considerations, and vaccine development.