European Grant of Millions Awarded to Amsterdam UMC Researchers to Tackle Climate-Driven Diarrhea Epidemic

2024-01-14 08:10:13

Worldwide, diarrhea is still one of the leading causes of death among children. And the pathogens that cause it are gaining ground again due to the changing climate. Diarrhea researchers at the Amsterdam UMC have now received a European grant worth millions to do something about this.

“We have had enormous success over the past twenty years in reducing the number of deaths from diarrhea,” says infectious disease specialist Vanessa Harris in the lab of medical microbiology and infection prevention at the Amsterdam UMC in Zuidoost. “A lot of investments worldwide in better water supplies and countries quickly take up new vaccinations, but those gains are in danger of being lost if we do not take the impending climate crisis into account in our policy decisions.”

In Amsterdam they mainly specialize in rotavirus. “The leading cause of diarrhea among young children, it kills more than 200,000 children every year,” says Harris.

The special thing about the 6.5 million euro subsidy from the European Commission is that it is not only for medical research, but that a multidisciplinary research team will be set up with it. This means that it will be looked at from different disciplines and subject areas. Harris will coordinate it on behalf of the Amsterdam Global Health Institute: “That money is to bring together a consortium to understand how we can better counter the climate effects on the burden of diarrheal disease worldwide.”

So not only infectious scientists, but also climate forecasters, health economists and policy makers will work together in Tanzania, Ghana, Romania and Italy to map out the major dangers – and solutions to them. For example, certain diarrheal bacteria will benefit from higher temperatures, but parasites will thrive when there is a lot of flooding. In a city like Naples they hitchhike on the landslides caused by heavy rainfall.

And anyone who thinks that Amsterdam will be spared all that may well be disappointed. Harris: “We don’t have much disease, but we do run the risk of flooding and overflowing the sewer. It is not without reason that the municipality warns not to swim in the canals when it rains very hard.”