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About Accordia

 

From the Experts

At the 2009 Celebration of Partnership, Accordia asked global health experts to dicuss the ways we can improve health outcomes in Africa. Watch what they had to say.

Why is Accordia’s and IDI’s work important to improving health in Africa?

Ambassador Mark Dybul, former Global AIDS Coordinator, discusses the importance of Accordia's and IDI's training programs, saying, “The ripple effect leads to more people being trained and more people being trained and more people cared for and more people alive, and it’s an extraordinary thing to see.”

“What Accordia and IDI are doing are training generations of doctors and other clinicians to be able to have the local healthcare capacity to deal with infectious disease. It’s absolutely fundamental, it’s right at the baseline of the most important response,” says Gary Cohen, executive vice president of BD.

Dr. Tom Quinn, professor Medicine, International Health, Epidemiology, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at John Hopkins University Medical Institutions, discusses the importance of cutting-edge research. “IDI and Accordia, working together, are doing some of the most important research activities on prevention and care at the present time.”

“Accordia, through IDI, really tries to implement its main goal, which is to try to increase the education and capacity for building up the healthcare workers in Africa,” says Joseph Feczko, retired senior vice president and chief medical officer at Pfizer Inc.

Infectious disease expert, Dr. Jerrold Ellner, says “The model that’s used in the Accordia Infectious Diseases Institute is pretty unique.”

 

What is the most important thing that people from developed countries can do to improve health outcomes in Africa?

Dr. Hank McKinnell, retired Chairman of Pfizer Inc, says, “Many assume with 25 million HIV-infected and many suffering from malaria and tuberculosis, this is an impossible problem. It is not. With a little bit of knowledge and a little bit of money, we can be successful”

“We have got to mobilize our resources, our time, our treasure, and invest to make certain that we avert the disasters, the threatening infectious disease disasters, that are confronting us in sub-Saharan Africa,” says Dr. Warner Greene, director of Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology.

“I think my wish for Americans would be to understand that, in a globalized economy, all of us are interdependent and it’s very important to recognize that we can do quite a lot, through institutions such as Accordia and IDI, to fight these devastating health threats that are plaguing the people of Africa,” says Dr. Steven Phillips, medical director for global issues and projects for ExxonMobil.

“Development is about the people from the United States supporting, lifting up the most talented, creative individuals you’ll find anywhere on the planet,” says Ambassador Mark Dybul.