Opinion Editorials & Interviews

Cooperation for Health

William J. Burns, U.S. Ambassador to Russia

"Rossiyskaya Gazeta", June 01, 2007

This year we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the United States and Russia. Today the breadth of our cooperation is stunning, given where we were less than a generation ago.

We are working hard to face the 21st century challenges of nuclear nonproliferation. Our space programs are almost symbiotic. More and more, as the Russian Federation stands on the threshold of WTO membership after our historic bilateral agreement last November, our countries are linked by strong economic and trade ties.

Cooperation between Russia and the United States has also extended into global health. The citizens of our countries, and of the world, have gained much from strategic health partnerships forged over the last fifty years.

We are successful because the breadth or our work extends well beyond our two governments - including universities, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector.

It is encouraging that with forums like the St. Petersburg First Annual Forum on Global Health held on Monday, May 21, our scope is expanding to also address the fundamentals of a sound education in public health.

Only a few years ago, former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson spoke here about public health and health diplomacy as the St. Petersburg State University was just establishing the School of Public Health. This year, the first graduating class from the School of Public Health will receive their degrees.

With the increasing public awareness of public health issues, it was also appropriate that Russia chose infectious diseases as a priority of its G8 Presidency in 2006. Infectious diseases have the potential to wreak havoc on labor markets, private industry, and the overall economy. During its G8 presidency, Russia helped advance global efforts related to the innovative financing of immunizations and vaccinations, and expanded research on critical infectious diseases. Creating the next generation of public health leaders and practitioners is just as important as producing the next wave of medical technologies.

It also makes sense that Russia in 2006 made Health and Education two of its four National Priority Projects. First Deputy Prime Minister Medvedev was right to call these investments in Russian health care and education "unprecedented." If sustained over the coming years, they could lead to dramatic improvements in demographic trends and quality of life.

In 2006, Russia also reemerged as an international health donor, with contributions of $270 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and $20 million for the World Bank Malaria in Africa Program. And Russia also pledged $18 million for the WHO Polio Eradication Program, which continues the good work that started way back in the 1950s at the height of the Cold War.

During those years, Dr. Albert Sabin from the University of Cincinnati, and Dr. Mikhail Chumakov, from Moscow's Institute for Polio Research, worked together to develop the Sabin polio vaccine. Working half a world apart, Sabin developed a vaccine made from a weakened and attenuated live form of the polio virus while Chumakov led the team of Russian scientists that refined the vaccine and developed it into a useful form that could be taken orally.

As a result, over 70 million people in the Soviet Union and the United States were inoculated against this deadly disease. This effort would not have been possible without the active involvement of both of our governments.

Our strategic partnerships in health are no less important today than they were 50 years ago. We need to build on the compelling example of Dr. Sabin and Dr. Chumakov, who recognized half a century ago that the need to counter the public health threat of polio outweighed any of our political differences.

American and Russian businesses are also doing their part to combat both HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis. Gazprom is a strong backer of the Russian Media Leadership Partnership Against AIDS, which is spearheading public awareness campaigns about HIV/AIDS on Russian television, including MTV Russia. Johnson and Johnson supports shelters in St. Petersburg for street children, many of whom are HIV positive.

The U.S. and Russian Governments have also worked together in several pilot regions in Russia to develop best practices in the care and treatment of tuberculosis. The Central TB Research Institute in Moscow and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta are engaged in joint research to track the effectiveness of TB drugs and to monitor drug resistance. We are also collaborating to establish the Novosibirsk Tuberculosis Research Center as a world renowned center of excellence for TB medical education and diagnostics.

Russia and the United States have gained a great deal by working together during the previous decade to combat tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS as part of the President Bush's HIV/AIDS campaign. Most recently we've been working together to keep Avian Influenza at bay and to be prepared in case this deadly new virus develops into a global pandemic like that which engulfed the world in 1918.

Our joint science and research matter not just to our countries, but also to the rest of the world. We work together not only in multilateral fora like the G8 and the WHO, but also in joint bilateral projects. We did just that in 2006. Under President Bush and President Putin's Bratislava AIDS Initiative, American and Russian laboratory specialists worked together to establish HIV/AIDS diagnostic and testing laboratories in Ethiopia and Namibia.

We want to continue this joint work. Together with the Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs we plan to build on the successes of the Bratislava Presidential Initiative and launch a new Health Partnership Initiative. The United States is committing $2.5 million this year to deploy Russian and American HIV/AIDS and infectious disease experts in third countries to strengthen laboratory capacity and address global public health threats together.

The Initiative will also expand the work of AIDS Training Centers in St. Petersburg and Moscow to respond to the HIV epidemic both in Russia and abroad. We will continue working in African countries, and now, we will also reach out to neighboring CIS countries to strengthen laboratory and infection control efforts where the need is great.