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By Vidia (Bobin) Roopchand
Last Saturday, Guyanese scientist Vidia (Bobin, nickname given to him by his uncle who was a tailor) Roopchand, from Wakenaam, was one of the 29 winners of the 2024 awards organized and presented through the RESET Talk Show, a weekly platform and broadcast. of New York. Roopchand was known for his contribution to the development of Pfizer’s latest viral vaccine, the RSV vaccine, Abrysvo. This was his second RESET award; in 2023, he was revered for his contribution to the progression of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Thanking JR Giddings (JRG Entertainment) and the Awards Committee for this honor, Bobin Roopchand emphasized that “vaccine progression is a team effort, encompassing experience spaces and cross-functional teams, and I would be revered if I settled for this year’s award on behalf of JR Giddings (JRG Entertainment) and the Awards Committee. From the Pfizer vaccine team, RSV. La column this week reflects on what this painting has meant. To him.
Here’s my story.
I have been participating in vaccine studies and progression at Pfizer Pearl River for over 30 years, starting with the polio vaccine and most recently with the COVID 19 vaccine and RSV vaccine, Abrysvo.
This Pearl River site has a history for its contribution to global public fitness dating back to 1906, when a former New York City fitness commissioner, Dr. Ernst Lederie, purchased a horse farm to make antisera for diphtheria toxin, and beyond 120 years. For years, successive generations of scientists have continued the legacy of Dr. Ernst Lederle.
This site has contributed to the advancement of several globally important vaccines, adding the polio vaccine (Orimune), the meningitis vaccine (HiBTiter) which is the first glycoconjugate vaccine, the Prevnar vaccine also glycoconjugate, the COVID 19 vaccine, the first glycoconjugate vaccine-RNA vaccine, and more recently, the pentavalent meningitis vaccine, Penbraya, and the RSV vaccine, Abrysvo. Pretty impressive for a horse farm!
Being part of something as important as the global effort to mitigate and eliminate infectious diseases has been a very rewarding experience for me.
Growing up in rural Guyana, the devastation caused by infectious diseases was very evident among the local population, especially young children. I have witnessed the devastation caused by polio, otitis media (the so-called runny ears in Guyana), meningitis, pneumonia and a host of other infectious diseases, in addition to gastroenteritis caused by rotavirus. Between 1962 and 1963, there were 485 cases of paralyzing polio in Guyana, and I heard horror stories about what happened in my village during that outbreak. The last case of paralytic polio in the Americas occurred in Peru in 1991, and the Americas were declared polio-free in 1994.
By the way, the last case of smallpox in the Americas occurred in Brazil in 1971, and the world was declared free of smallpox in 1980, which I believe is the ultimate vital milestone in global public health.
I was born in 1967 and a few years before me there were young people who had been crippled by polio. So I witnessed the devastation and also the havoc that rotavirus was wreaking in the 70s and 80s. Fortunately, in 2006 two rotavirus vaccines were authorized, so rotavirus is no longer the challenge it was when I grew up in Guyana.
When I had the opportunity to work at a vaccine development organization, called Lederie-Praxis Biologicals at the time, and work in particular on the polio vaccine and the candidate vaccines against RSV and rotavirus, I felt like fate was calling me, it’s like anything I was born to do. .
But that’s only part of the story.
In the early 1990s, polio was still a challenge in Africa. In the early 1990s, there were about 75,000 cases of paralytic polio per year in Africa. This was not due to a shortage of polio vaccines; This was due to the lack of refrigeration facilities for the garage and the distribution of the vaccine, as the oral polio vaccine will have to be stored in the refrigerator. This meant that remote villages in Africa without refrigeration were at a serious disadvantage when it came to receiving polio vaccine.
That all began to change in 1996, when the defeated South African leader Nelson Mandela introduced the “Drive Polio Out of Africa” movement. He managed to convince vaccine manufacturers, investment agencies, Rotary International, NGOs, and governments to work together to create a netpainting of bloodless garage facilities and distribution centers across Africa, which resulted in Africa being declared “free of wild polio” in 2020.
When the “Eliminate Polio in Africa” initiative was launched in 1996, Mandela spoke at a soccer match in which he was pressed that a unified effort by all sectors of society would be needed to end polio in Africa. He said, “Only unified efforts, galvanizing entire societies toward those goals, will succeed in driving this virus, which looks so much like a soccer ball, out of Africa and, ultimately, the world. “
The idea that entire societies might be committed, almost recruited, to fighting infectious diseases struck me prodigiously. It sparked a sense of determination and conviction, which has galvanized and sustained me ever since.
In 2003, Mandela or Madiba, as he is known in South Africa, said anything that would only strengthen my sense of usefulness and conviction: “The life or death of a child also depends on whether he or she was born in a country or not.
This is how I am a vaccine researcher, how I discovered my meaning and my beliefs, and those are the resources of my inspiration and hobby for vaccine development, my formative years witness the devastation caused by infectious diseases in Guyana and Madiba’s speeches, in which he encouraged the commitment of entire societies to the cause of immunization programs.
Every time Madiba spoke about equity in global immunization programs from the formative years, I felt like he was directly giving me a mandate and I did my best to fulfill it, and for the more than 30 years, I have approached my role with a sense of responsibility.
There is still much room for improvement in global vaccination rates, and the number of unvaccinated young people worldwide remains very high (what we call “zero dose”). Since 2019, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of young people who have not obtained any doses globally due to COVID-19 disruptions, the accumulation of economic crises and conflicts, and declining vaccine confidence. In 2021 alone, 18. 2 million young people did not receive the first dose of the DTP vaccine, which protects against diphtheria and tetanus. and whooping cough. It’s the kind of thing that helps me stay up at night.
Now that the first mRNA vaccine has been approved, I think we have just witnessed one of the milestones in biomedical innovation. This is very similar to what happened in 1978, when it was first shown that recombinant human insulin could be produced. through bacteria; Recombinant human insulin was first approved through the FDA in 1982. This progression gave birth to the entire global biotechnology industry and resulted in the approval of at least 239 biotech drugs for human use. I think something similar can happen with mRNA generation, especially if it is complemented by generative AI to design more effective vaccines and treatments. This combination of M-RNA generation and generative AI can potentially be very transformative for trendy medicine.
My contribution to global public fitness isn’t just the result of my efforts. It is also the product of everyone who has contributed to my life, including my parents, grandparents, wife, children, mother-in-law, and others in my village. , friends, professors from Sans Souci Métho-dist, the Anna Regina Multilateral School and the University of Guyana. I would like to take a minute to pay tribute to the giants who explained the Department of Chemistry at the University of Guyana: Dr. George Walcott, Dr. Halvidar Singh, Dr. Neville Trotz, Dr. Winston Tinto, Mrs. Jackie Joseph, Mr. Malcolm Bunbury, and Mr. Everall Franklin, all of whom made significant contributions to my undergraduate studies. The synthesis of key chemicals compounds in the production of the COVID-19 vaccine matched all the concepts I had learned in 401 heterocyclic chemistry and this program created at the University of Guyana through Dr. Walcott, Dr. Halvidar Singh, and Dr. Neville Trotz.
I also thank the New York School of Medicine in the Department of Immunology and the School of Chemical Engineering at Columbia University and, of course, all my colleagues at Pfizer.
Finally, and more than anything else, this honor is a resounding popularity of the Caribbean’s contribution to global public health.
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