1-12-4 Sakamoto, Nagasaki 852-8523, Japan
TEL：+81-95-819-7764 / FAX：+81-95-819-7844
The Department of Pediatric Infectious Diseases is a recently expanded department under the Clinical Research Division at the Institute of Tropical Medicine. We work on a wide range of diseases with special attention on pediatric infectious diseases including pneumonia, diarrhea, dengue and malaria. Our research interests include integration of clinical and environmental epidemiology at international, national and local levels.
Our research interests cover most of environmental epidemiology. Current substantive research topics of interest, on which we work in collaboration with both international and Japanese colleagues, focus mainly on the impacts of weather and global climate change on health, but also include health risks of air pollution.
Ongoing projects include: 1. Effects of flooding and weather on cholera, acute respiratory infections and other infectious diseases in Bangladesh. 2. Ocean-atmosphere interaction phenomenon including Indian Ocean Dipole and its association with malaria and cholera in the East Africa. 3. Health effects of Asian dust in the East Asia. 4. Intervention study to prevent heat-related illness in Japan. 5. Excess mortality due to influenza in Southeast Asia.
Our department has a strong collaboration with the Department of Pediatrics of Nagasaki University. We regularly received clinical samples to identify viral and bacterial pathogens from pediatric cases admitted to the Nagasaki University hospital with severe respiratory infection. We are also conducting pneumococcal serotyping and antibiotic sensitivity testing of Streptococcal pneumoniae strains from cases with invasive pneumococcal diseases in Japan. Currently we are developing an advance molecular serotyping technique using nanofluidic technology to determine the S.pneumoniae serotype directly from clinical samples.
This study is conducted with funding from the Japan Initiative for Global Research Network on Infectious Diseases (JGRID). Our main counterpart in Vietnam is the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE), Vietnam. We have been conducting a large population based cohort study on Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Khanh Hoa Province, central Vietnam since 2006, to determine the etiology and risk factors for severe common pediatric infectious diseases (SPID) like acute respiratory infection (ARI), diarrhea and dengue which are the major causes of under 5 mortality. The study site covers a population of 353,525 residing in 75,826 households with 24,781 children less than 5 years. We conducted population census, demographic, social-behavioral data collection and disease burden study on SPID. We also obtained hospital databases from two hospitals covering the region. Utilizing these large databases, we were able to investigate on a variety of SPID in Vietnam. In addition, to determine incidence, viral etiology and risk factors for pediatric ARI/pneumonia, we are conducting a population based hospitalized Pediatric ARI surveillance at Khanh Hoa General Hospital, Nha-Trang since 2007.
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh
National Institute for Hygiene and Epidemiology, Vietnam
Kenya Medical Research Institute, Kenya
School of Public Health, Seoul National University, Korea
School of Medicine, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea
Department of Spatial Sciences, Curtin University, Australia
Department of Geography, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
World Health Organization, Western Pacific Regional Office
Khanh Hoa General Hospital, Vietnam
Khanh Hoa Health Service Department, Vietnam
Bach Mai Hospital, Hanoi, Vietnam
Nha Trang Pasteur Institute, Vietnam
Hochimin Pasteur Institute, Vietnam
Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, Australia
