In Pittsburg, Ten million dollars were donated by a foundation to the University of Pittsburg, Graduate School of Public Health. The $10 million grant was given by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to be used in the stopping of global disease outbreaks through selection of new vaccines. The grant will help put up computer technology for the creation of computer simulations which will be able to track down epidemics and the worst scenario it may have in the process.

As the research for vaccine modeling initiative is housed at Pitts in partnership with the Pennsylvania State University as well as the Imperial College London, the collaborations of three big universities is expected to give good results. Infectious disease experts and computational modelers from Johns Hopkins University are also topped to give their recommendations of the ongoing research made by the three universities. It was also reported the models they will be able to design from the collaborations of experts would be to fit the incidence and prevalence as well as geographic patterns of spreading of the earlier reported epidemics in the country as well as in other countries of the world. Epidemics experts with proven expertise based on their CV writing are working hand in hand for this project.

Donald Burke, grant’s principal investigator and dean of the UP Graduate School of Public Health said the world is burdened by the infectious diseases that hit in the previous years. He said among the most recent studies to combat the outbreak of infectious disease is on the prediction on how diseases could be prevented before it can damage further. This means the computer technology which is currently undertaken in the research will also help in testing the of the new vaccine technologies.

Initially, Burke said the program is focusing on influenza, measles, as well as dengue. Globally, the mosquito-borne infection has already affected millions of children. On the later part of the program it would also develop vaccines for controlling rotavirus, epidemic pertussis, polio, tuberculosis and polio. The grant is also expected to purchase the use of highly-powered computers in order to perform the most difficult and complex calculations. The program is also expected to give guidance to public health experts how to properly prevent the spread of epidemics in communities.