London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has celebrated its close links with India at an event in New Delhi.

Every year, a distinguished leader in the field of public health is invited to talk about an area of great national and global importance at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) Foundation Day Lecture.

This year, the School’s Director, Professor Peter Piot, had the honour of giving the fourth annual Foundation Day Lecture.

LSHTM is a key partner in PHFI’s efforts to strengthen training, research and policy development in public health.

PHFI President Professor K Srinath Reddy, who was made an Honorary Fellow of LSHTM in 2009, welcomed guests to the Stein Auditorium in the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi for Professor Piot’s lecture.

Professor Srinath Reddy, a renowned cardiologist and epidemiologist who has been involved in several major international research studies and has served on many WHO expert panels, helped lead a successful bid for funding from the Wellcome Trust for a significant research collaboration between PHFI and institutions including LSHTM.

The School has a long tradition of research and capacity building in India, and this was given a boost when the Wellcome Trust awarded a £4.5m grant to PHFI and a consortium of 15 UK institutions co-ordinated by LSHTM to set up a research network based in New Delhi. The work of the South Asia Network for Chronic Disease, co-ordinated by LSHTM Professor of Public Health, Shah Ebrahim, is helping to develop research into the prevention and management of diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer. PHFI has also received a £5m grant from the Wellcome Trust for capacity building.

Other LSHTM collaborations in the country include the Sangath Centre in Goa, co-founded by Vikram Patel, Professor of International Mental Health at LSHTM, and the South Asia Centre for Vision and Disability in Hyderabad, led by Gudlavalleti Murthy, senior lecturer at the International Centre for Eye Health.

During his lecture - Discussing Global Health in the 21st Century: From Concerns to Concerted Action - Professor Piot reviewed old and new challenges in global health and public health worldwide, as well as new opportunities to respond to them. One approach he highlighted was Global Health 4.0. - a new way of international collaboration in global health.

The Foundation Day event featured a number of other LSHTM staff and alumni among the guests, while Ambassador Shyan Saran, former Indian Foreign Secretary and current chairman of Research and Information System for Developing Countries, was the Guest of Honour.

Ends