Visit of FMR researchers in Europe leads to initial steps

The obvious idea triggered by the prevalence study presented at the Hyderabad conference was to conduct two or three more such studies to get more reliable data. However, it soon turned out to be a waste of resources to invest into a negligible increase of reliability without really tackling the core methodological challenge: The rareness of the disease and the well-known uneven, “pocket”-like distribution would require a tremendously high number of samples to really allow conclusions. Therefore, and reinforced by staff fluctuation at the Novartis Foundation, a period of “gathering input and browsing for ideas” began.

In September 2008 two leading researchers of the Foundation for Medical Research (FMR) in Mumbai, which had conducted the study causing the debate in Hyderabad, asked for a meeting with the Foundation for Sustainable Development. In order to increase the potential of such a meeting a few short-term available experts were invited to join. During the meeting the idea came up to initiate a concrete step towards shaping the design of the envisaged study initiative by asking Dr. Linda Oskam (Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam) to draw together a first draft outlining the possible design of a study series in India, the country with the highest absolute number of new cases and therefore a natural candidate to start with.

Apart from envisaging the formation of an advisory board in 2009 one of the most obvious tasks after having the first draft of a possible study design will be to organize exploratory meetings with some key players in the Indian context.

See also the minutes of the meeting.