International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research (icddr,b), Bangladesh - an international health research institution located in Dhaka.
Dedicated to saving lives through research and treatment, icddr,b addresses some of the most critical health concerns facing the world today, ranging from improving neonatal survival to HIV/AIDS. In collaboration with academic and research institutions throughout the world, icddr,b conducts research, training and extension activities, as well as programme-based activities, to develop and share knowledge for global lifesaving solutions.
icddr,b has a mix of national and international staff, including public health scientists, laboratory scientists, clinicians, nutritionists, epidemiologists, demographers, social and behavioural scientists, IT professionals, and experts in emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, and vaccine sciences. The Centre has a cross-cultural environment, with 95% local staff including researchers, medical officers, administrators, and health workers, and 5% international staff primarily from academic and research institutions engaged in global health research.
Since 1978, the Centre has shared its knowledge with the world, training more than 27,000 health professionals from over 78 countries. Courses provide practical training in topics such as hospital management of diarrhoeal diseases, epidemiology, biostatistics, family planning, demographic surveillance and child survival strategies.
icddr,b’s activities are supported by about 55 donor countries and organizations, including the Government of Bangladesh, UN specialized agencies, foundations, universities, research institutes and private sector organizations and companies that share the Centre’s concern for the health problems of developing countries and value its proven experience in helping solve those problems. The Centre is governed by a distinguished multinational Board of Trustees comprising 17 members from around the globe.
Services
ICDDR,B provides services that support the mission by leveraging research and the generation of knowledge and its effective application.
Translating research expertise
Services in this category are related to the four thematic research areas (healthy life course, mitigating risks and vulnerability, combating priority diseases, equitable health systems) with the aim of generating evidence-based knowledge, which can be used to improve public health practices in Bangladesh, the region and elsewhere.
Clinical and diagnostic services
ICDDR,B offers a range of clinical and diagnostic services, including a Travellers Clinic and laboratories for routine diagnostic examinations, vaccinations, pathological tests, mammographies, ultrasonographies, bronchoscopies, and upper and lower gastrointestinal endoscopies. ICDDR,B also operates a blood bank and ensures continual monitoring of laboratory equipment and techniques to maintain and offer suitable services at the cutting edge of development.
Humanitarian services in response to emergencies, both within and outside Bangladesh
As an organisation with decades of expertise in the treatment of cholera and dysentery and the management of large epidemic outbreaks, ICDDR,B has always supported other nations facing these problems. ICDDR,B researchers and support staff have helped local authorities manage cholera outbreaks in places including Bahrain, Ecuador, Iraq, Mozambique, Peru, Zaire, Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Zimbabwe. Rapid response teams comprising experts who manage cholera and severe diarrhoea in the field, both in Bangladesh and abroad, supplement capacity building services to health professionals in affected countries. ICDDR,B also offers the services of its biosafety levels 2 and 3 laboratories to type, process and store pathogens from humans and animals sent by partners and obtained by its own scientists, as well as for the training of professionals in the region in the use of these types of facilities.
Field Sites
Matlab
ICDDR,B maintains one of the richest, most comprehensive and longest running, longitudinal data resources in the developing world, producing regular accurate demographic and health data for rural Bangladesh. With over 40 years of continuous demographic information on a population of over 200,000 people, Matlab is a major rural field site, and a major public health resource for the world. The site is a model for public health strategies around the world. Public health decision makers often refer to Matlab to understand underlying factors that are important for making decisions regarding intervention design.
The Health and Demographic Surveillance System at Matlab covers a population of about 225,000, providing data necessary to plan, conduct, and evaluate various types of public-health intervention research. The surveillance system’s key role is to monitor population exposure accurately over time to derive health and demographic rates and ratios, and assess impacts of health and social interventions. Structured interviews are conducted to register birth, death, marriage, divorce, migration, internal movement and household split every two months in all households in the 142 villages. Periodic socioeconomic surveys also collect information on occupation and household assets.
Urban
ICDDR,B's has two urban field sites, in Kamalapur and Mirpur, Dhaka. Kamalapur is an urban slum area with a population of 140,000 (2000 census) and is rapidly becoming an 'urban Matlab'. The site has been used for studies on pneumonia, shigellosis, influenza, and dengue. In cooperation with the Urban Family Health Project, Kamalapur is used for studies on urban health, including how best to provide health services, set up referral systems, and finance health programmes.
Other Sites
The Centre works in several other field areas in addition to Matlab and each of these adds much-needed capabilities and resources. These include field areas in Abhoynagar, Mirsarai, Chakaria, Sylhet, Mirzapur and others. These field areas each have unique attributes which contribute to the overall programme of ICDDR,B.
