The Bandim Health Project operates in one of the world’s poorest countries, Guinea-Bissau

Guinea-Bissau

The Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north, and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west....

 in West Africa

West Africa

West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...

. The core of the project is a demographic surveillance

Demography

Demography is the statistical study of human population. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic human population, that is, one that changes over time or space...

 system which registers more than 90,000 people in 5 suburbs of the capital Bissau

Bissau

Bissau is the capital city of Guinea-Bissau. The city's borders are conterminous with the Bissau Autonomous Sector. In 2007, the city had an estimated population of 407,424 according to the Instituto Nacional de Estatística e Censos...

. Information on health, diseases, immunisations, breast-feeding, etc. is collected, primarily focusing on women and children. Admissions to the country’s sole pediatric ward

Pediatrics

Pediatrics or paediatrics is the branch of medicine that deals with the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents. A medical practitioner who specializes in this area is known as a pediatrician or paediatrician...

 in the capital are recorded.

History

The Bandim Health Project was initiated in 1978 with the aim of improving child survival in Guinea-Bissau. The project is currently based on collaboration between the Ministry of Health, Guinea-Bissau, Statens Serum Institut

Statens Serum Institut

Statens Serum Institut , or SSI for short, is a Danish sector research institute located on the island of Amager in Copenhagen. Its purpose is to combat and prevent infectious diseases, congenital disorders, and threats from weapon of mass destruction...

 in Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

, and researchers affiliated to Copenhagen University, and University of Aarhus

University of Aarhus

Aarhus University , located in the city of Aarhus, Denmark, is Denmark's second oldest and second largest university...

, Denmark.

Fields of research

The Bandim Health Project works with population based health research, focusing on women and children. The project’s fields of research include:

• Vaccine
  Vaccine
  A vaccine is a biological preparation that improves immunity to a particular disease. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism, and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe or its toxins...
  
  s, both their specific effects on the targeted disease
  Disease
  A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...
  
  s, and their potential non-targeted effects on morbidity
  Incidence (epidemiology)
  Incidence is a measure of the risk of developing some new condition within a specified period of time. Although sometimes loosely expressed simply as the number of new cases during some time period, it is better expressed as a proportion or a rate with a denominator.Incidence proportion is the...
  
   and mortality
  Death
  Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
  
  .
• Other health intervention
  Health intervention
  A health intervention is an effort to promote good health behaviour such as physical exercise or to prevent bad health behaviours, e.g. promoting tobacco smoking cessation or discouraging the use of illicit drugs or excessive drinking....
  
  s, including assessment of the total impact on mortality of new interventions or changes in existing policies.
• Infectious disease
  Infectious disease
  Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
  
  s, e.g. measles
  Measles
  Measles, also known as rubeola or morbilli, is an infection of the respiratory system caused by a virus, specifically a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus. Morbilliviruses, like other paramyxoviruses, are enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses...
  
  , diarrhoea, rotavirus
  Rotavirus
  Rotavirus is the most common cause of severe diarrhoea among infants and young children, and is one of several viruses that cause infections often called stomach flu, despite having no relation to influenza. It is a genus of double-stranded RNA virus in the family Reoviridae. By the age of five,...
  
  , respiratory infections, malaria
  Malaria
  Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
  
  , HIV
  HIV
  Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
  
  , HTLV, and Tuberculosis
  Tuberculosis
  Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
  
  .
• Nutrition
  Nutrition
  Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....
  
  , including micronutrient
  Micronutrient
  Micronutrients are nutrients required by humans and other living things throughout life in small quantities to orchestrate a whole range of physiological functions, but which the organism itself cannot produce. For people, they include dietary trace minerals in amounts generally less than 100...
  
  s such as vitamin A
  Vitamin A
  Vitamin A is a vitamin that is needed by the retina of the eye in the form of a specific metabolite, the light-absorbing molecule retinal, that is necessary for both low-light and color vision...
  
   supplementation, and breast-feeding.
• Humanitarian aid
  Humanitarian aid
  Humanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crises including natural disaster and man-made disaster. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity...
  
  .

Important results

One of the most important findings was that a new measles vaccine used in low-income countries was associated with a two-fold increase in mortality among girls. This discovery led to the withdrawal of the vaccine. Had it not been withdrawn, it could have cost at least ½ million additional female deaths per year in Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 alone.

The organization

The Bandim Health Project is led by Peter Aaby http://www.ssi.dk/sw18358.asp. Since the project’s foundation in 1978, more than 450 scientific articles have been published, and 31 PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 or doctoral degrees and 13 Masters

Master's degree

A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...

 of International Health degrees have been obtained by researchers employed by the project.

Affiliations

Bandim Health Project is a co-founder of the Graduate School

Graduate school

A graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...

 in International Health at Copenhagen University.
The Bandim Health Project is a member of The ENRECA (ENhancement of REsearch CApacity) Network http://enrecahealth.ku.dk. The Project is also part of Centre for International Health CISU at Copenhagen University, and of The INDEPTH Network, a network of demographic surveillance sites in Africa and Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

 http://www.indepth-network.org. Furthermore, the project collaborates closely with Aarhus University and several international research institutions.