Vrije Universiteit Brussel

The problem of chronic diseases in the third world

Cancer is more and more a world-wide problem as it also occurs frequently in developing countries. Virally induced forms of cancer (such as cervical cancer and liver cancer) are nowadays among the most important causes of cancer and its mortality in many parts of the world including Africa. Implementation of vaccinations that would be an effective strategy for the prevention of these diseases currently poses financial-economic and logistic problems. Moreover, these treatments would only have a beneficial effect over periods of 20-25 years, which necessitates the development of other more efficient approaches. Breast- and intestinal cancer belong to a second type of cancer that also frequently occurs in the third world. They will increase in importance with increasing the life expectancy due to improved socio-economic status and -levels in several developing countries. Moreover, the world-wide spreading of smoking habits strongly affects the adolescent populations in developing countries and with a time lag of years, this will lead to a dramatic increase in the incidence and prevalence of lung cancer and other cancers. In the treatment of these cancers, targeted molecular approaches with monoclonal antibodies and small molecules interacting with oncogene kinases will have an increasing importance. The treatments based on these approaches are still too expensive and it is expected that this will remain a major bottleneck, despite improving health insurance policies and despite price adjustments made by the international drug companies for patients in low-income countries. For these reasons, it is particularly important that in countries such as those in Sub Sahara Africa, the target population that needs to be treated with these drugs can be identified, so that the investments made for therapy can be used in an optimal way.

The incidence of diabetes is also increasing worldwide in large parts of the world and sums up to 150 million patients. In particular low and lower-middle income countries from the OESO-DAC list suffer most. To illustrate this, the literature reports that China and India together represent 50 million diabetic patients, and it is expected that the number of people with diabetes in the South will rise from 135 million in 1995 to 300 million in 2025. In large parts of the world, these numbers are still an underestimation: each patient represents a non-diagnosed case in the western world, and 8 in the third world. In the near future the majority of diabetic patients will live in China and India. Diabetes represents an important burden to the society in terms of health expenses, caused by cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, renal failure, and amputations. It is estimated that up to 15% of health expenses are related to diabetes-associated complications. In addition, reliable epidemiological data are unavailable for many populations with respect to different diabetes types. As in western societies, the environmental factors that can elicit clinical diabetes in genetically predisposed subjects also remain largely elusive in developing countries. At last, data on the genetic background of diabetes in the South are missing, sporadic and/or outdated.

Recruitment of students from the third world

Young academics are often better placed than policymakers to judge about the health priorities for the coming decades in their home countries. Presently new research and clinical centers, in the fields of cancer and diabetes research and treatment are being set up in the third world and these centers are in urgent need of highly qualified staff members. As a consequence, the opportunities for professional activities after obtaining a PhD degree in these fields are quite good. This PhD research curriculum will represent an added value for the PhD candidate's home country by transferring both knowledge as well as technology in the fields of cancer or diabetes diagnosis, treatment and prevention. The recruitment of students from the relevant regions in Africa might help to ensure the continuity or initiate new health projects within the scope of the two chronic diseases mentioned above. The perspective to return to the country of origin and the link to home-based universities is therefore crucial for a sustainable developmental effect of the trained scientists of this program.

Scholarships

The Vrije Universiteit Brussel awards 5 master scholarships of 2 years each to the Master programme in Biomedical Sciences - Cell and Gene Therapy in the academic year 2009-2010. Besides the existing network in Cameroon, equivalent start-ups can be initiated in other developing countries with the aim of initiating North-South networks on the theme of cancer or diabetes epidemiology, research and prevention. Candidates are encouraged to write a personal motivation letter in which they document their pre-existing motivation and achievements in one of these fields as well as their sustainable links to universities in their home country. Students who can document an academic career perspective together with strong academic records receive priority in the selection procedure carried out by the scientific board. After finishing this 2 year program, the most promising students can apply for a scholarship to start doctoral research. Scholarships are awarded on a competitive basis. The following link can be consulted for further information on these grants by connecting to the official announcement and instruction page.