September 27, 2022, SEOUL, Republic of Korea — The International Vaccine Institute (IVI), an international organization with a mission to discover, develop, and deliver safe, effective, and affordable vaccines for global health, kicked off its annual International Vaccinology Course on Monday. This year’s course will host 200 international trainees at IVI headquarters in Seoul and 20 trainees at Karolinska Institutet (KI) in Stockholm, where IVI opened its Europe Regional Office earlier this year.
Faculty members from both IVI sites as well as London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Nepalese Ministry of Health, Moderna, Hilleman Laboratories, and more, will lead 5 days of lectures, interactive case studies, and site visits to local vaccine research and development and disease control and prevention centers. IVI awarded Vaccinology Fellowships to 11 trainees to attend the course at IVI.
“The International Vaccinology Course, IVI’s flagship capacity-building program, encapsulates IVI’s commitment to sustainable capacity-building as a core pillar of its work to accelerate vaccines for global health,” said Dr. Jerome Kim, Director General of IVI. “We are proud to expand the IVC to two locations for the first time, reflecting IVI’s new presence in Europe and building up a vaccine development, innovation, and training hub in Sweden.”
“We are delighted to bring back IVI’s International Vaccinology Course as an on-site immersive training and networking experience,” said Dr. Anh Wartel, IVC Director. “With nearly three years of living in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s program emphasizes innovations in vaccine development and the importance of vaccinating the world with equity. We are grateful to our partners at the Karolinska Institutet for hosting the Swedish segment of this year’s IVC and to our program sponsors, Genexine, Hilleman Laboratories, Moderna, Sanofi, SK bioscience, Valneva, and VITAL-Korea for making the course possible.”
“At Karolinska Institutet, we are most excited to host the Swedish site of IVI’s Vaccinology Course and we look forward to an inspiring and interactive week,” said Prof. Anna Norrby-Teglund, Karolinska Institutet – IVI Academic Coordinator.
Since its founding in 2000, the annual IVC has trained nearly 3,000 vaccine professionals from low- and middle-income countries worldwide and has fostered collaborative partnerships in research and public health. The IVC aims to promote vaccine sustainability by building capacity across the vaccine development spectrum, emphasizing practicality with applied topics in discovery, development, and delivery. World-renowned experts make up the faculty, and IVI headquarters hosts the course every year. With the opening of IVI’s Europe Regional Office in Sweden in 2022, the course will be held at two locations this year.
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About the International Vaccine Institute (IVI)
The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) is a non-profit international organization established in 1997 at the initiative of the United Nations Development Programme with a mission to discover, develop, and deliver safe, effective, and affordable vaccines for global health.
IVI’s current portfolio includes vaccines at all stages of pre-clinical and clinical development for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect low- and middle-income countries, such as cholera, typhoid, chikungunya, shigella, salmonella, schistosomiasis, hepatitis E, HPV, COVID-19, and more. IVI developed the world’s first low-cost oral cholera vaccine, pre-qualified by the World Health Organization (WHO), and developed a new-generation typhoid conjugate vaccine that is currently under assessment for WHO PQ.
IVI is headquartered in Seoul, Republic of Korea with a Europe Regional Office in Sweden and Collaborating Centers in Ghana, Ethiopia, and Madagascar. 39 countries and the WHO are members of IVI, and the governments of the Republic of Korea, Sweden, India, and Finland provide state funding. For more information, please visit https://www.ivi.int.
CONTACT
Aerie Em, Global Communications & Media Specialist
+82 2 881 1386 | aerie.em@ivi.int
