Partner Institutes
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| University of Birmingham | Aga Khan University |
You may be feeling
on top of the world today but did you know that your body could be harbouring a
viral infection without you even knowing it? Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a species of
virus that is present in more than 70% of the adult world population. An unusual
characteristic of the virus is that it never clears from the host following the
infection. In a normal, healthy adult, it poses no danger. However, chronic CMV
infection in older people leads to a decrease in the ability of the immune
system to fight other, more dangerous infections. Moreover, CMV is one of the
infections mostly easily passed on to fetuses and can prove fatal for newborns.
The
Aga Khan University, Pakistan and the University of Birmingham, UK are studying
the biological and clinical importance of CMV to determine its prevalence in
several districts of Karachi
The
partnership will develop a short course in virology for the mutual benefit of
both universities. Faculty and student exchange is also a major component of
this project. A PhD student from the Aga Khan
University was placed at the University of Birmingham
for research while leading cancer specialist Dr. Paul Moss from the University of Birmingham
delivered seven lectures in Pakistan
Lessons
learnt:
- This project has helped us in finding answers to some of the health related problems particularly those which are also marred by social aspects found in the low income group particularly in the peri-urban population.
- The project has also given us experience in how sharing of the knowledge and skills in the form of training graduate students can help us developing research skills in the area of health and higher education.
Challenges faced:
- The security situation is
- Identifying and recruiting study participants to do upper strata of the socioeconomic group as well as lower economic group, has been a challenge.
Impact:
- The major benefit of this project would be the enhancement of the understanding about the correct status of cytomegalovirus (CMV) in the local population, mainly so because such a large number participants with demographical data has not been studied for the assessment of the status of this particular virus.
- This study would lead to the initiation of further projects in
this area and would also assist in finding the association between the CMV
infection with hepatitis C virus infection which is a much greater and complex
problem in the context of
Key
contacts:
Prof.
Paul Moss, University
of Birmingham
Prof.
Anwar Ali Siddiqui , Aga Khan
University
