Click on the image above to view the video. 

Finance Colombia: But here, of course, in Medellín… Medellín is, as you know, kind of like a combination of the Silicon Valley of Colombia, and now with the biotech that you’re doing, it’s almost like Boston as well. It’s amazing to see something like this, not just Colombian operated, but Colombian owned, as part of SURA.

Jorge Osorio: We are very proud of it, you know, we’re very proud, and it’s kind of my dream come true. I left Colombia when I was very young, 22 years old. I didn’t know a word of English. I grew up in a very humble family, you know, a low-income family. But through education, I was able to make it through, and I ended up in Wisconsin, without even knowing where Wisconsin was. I went with short sleeves, you know? But I went in the summer, so it was great, because the summer is so nice, you know. As the weather gets colder and colder, I was like, “Oh my god, what am I doing here?”

Finance Colombia: By September, it’s all changing.

Jorge Osorio: I know, I know. The first November I was there, we had three feet of snow. It was up to here, so it was crazy. It was crazy. So then, little by little, you know, I learned English, and loved school, did my master’s, my PhD in Wisconsin, and I worked in the industry in the US. I started my own company in the US. My mom, all these things are inspired by mothers, you know, mothers play a major role in us. My mother told me one day, “Son, you haven’t done anything with your life.” After having my master’s, my PhD, and being a professor in one of the top universities in the US, my mom said, “You haven’t done anything with your life. People in Colombia are dying of dengue, and you haven’t done anything. Do something, do something for dengue, try to figure that out.” So what a challenge. So I started studying dengue, and with a friend of mine, created a company to make a vaccine, and I did it. It was successful.

Click on the above image to watch the full video and tour.

So that was like my moment of pride, and that vaccine is now in the hands of the people. Our company, Takeda, bought the vaccine, bought the company, and everything, and now that’s being used to prevent dengue. So at the same time, I said, “I need to do something for my own country, you know, my homeland. I’ve done this company somewhere else, and I need to do something.” So COVID came, you know.

And when COVID came, SURA said, “We need to do something.” Because what has happened is that we’re going to continue having these problems, you know, these outbreaks, these things are going to continue happening in general. But we were like one of the last countries… well, LATAM was one of the last regions to get vaccines.

Finance Colombia: Most people here who could, I mean, even I flew to Miami to get my vaccine, and then people were waiting on different ones, and the country was dependent on the mercy… And every other country is going to take care of their people first, and then send what’s left over down here.

Jorge Osorio: So we got vaccines from Sinovac, we got a few things there, but SURA said, “We need to do something ourselves, we need to do something.” So I came to meet with them, and that was my dream. I said, You know, I want to do something for my homeland.” And this is it.

So I decided, I want this to be inspired, to make people feel good to come to work here, and so the design of the buildings, I took a lot of a role in that as well. The design of the gardens, everything, the facilities inside, everything I did, I did a lot myself.

Finance Colombia: It’s amazing. So from Wisconsin, back home. And so you already sort of answered a couple of the questions that I have, which was why, not just why Colombia, not that there’s any bad reasons, but it’s interesting because there has not been, not just in Colombia, but in Latin America generally, not a large industry in producing high-level biologics.

I mean, some companies do things like produce vitamins, and some contract manufacturing, but not like the vaccines, which is a much higher tech than just saying, “I’m going to produce a generic, I’m going to produce a vitamin supplement,” or something like that.

Jorge Osorio: So yeah, because look, the whole region is 650 million. LATAM. That’s pretty large, isn’t it? And there are only four countries that make vaccines: Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, and Argentina, and they don’t make enough for everyone. So there’s a need to do this. There’s a need to produce something that will provide more vaccines for the region. At the same time, my dream is that… Tropical diseases affect people around the planet. It’s not just Colombia, or Venezuela, or the region, but mosquito-borne diseases, dengue, for example, affects people in Africa, in Europe, Spain, and Italy are having cases of that as well, and Asia as well.

Primary filling facility (photos © Loren Moss)

So I think what I would like to see happening is that we export science and technology from Colombia. We put our brains to work, and we export science and technology to help folks in other parts of the world, and we can control diseases in that way. We can export our knowledge and our scientists. I’m very proud of the scientists that we have, you know, people that we have.

Finance Colombia: The talent, and not just Colombian talent, but global talent. You have a quality control guy coming from India… And so that makes Colombia, and specifically Antioquia, kind of like a global hub.

Jorge Osorio: So what I want to see here, and we can even walk, and you can see. Because I’d like you to see what my dream is. You know, if you come to this area, it’s mostly.. You find these parking areas for cars that are near the airport, right? We can change the whole concept here by creating what you just said, a biotech hub.

That this whole area here, I dream that there’s going to be more buildings coming, hospitals, because we need some other supplies to make the vaccines. We need someone to make the caps, the glasses, and the enzymes. So I think we could have some other players that will come here and say, “Hey, you know, I want to be part of this.” And this could be a new hub for biotech. That’s how it started, actually in India.

If you go to a place like Hyderabad, if you’ve been there, but the hub for biotechnology there it’s called the Genome Valley. And that Genome Valley started about 30 years ago with one single company. Today, it’s amazing. And that’s what I want to see happening here: that we build more and more industry, and we invite more people to come to join this effort.

Finance Colombia: And people don’t realize that that brings not just the jobs, but the talent and the know-how that establishes you as the center for this.

Jorge Osorio: Exactly. And, you know, I think I’ve been seeing the Colombian folks that have come back, they wanted something like this to happen. They have said, you know, like you just met the plant director, Juan Fernando. He’s like, “Oh, you know, this was a dream of my life to be able to come back, but the opportunity was never there.” So I think we want to provide that, but also for the young people who are here in Colombia to feel that there’s an opportunity.

Finance Colombia: You don’t have to leave. There’s an opportunity here. A lot of times, there’s a brain drain.

Jorge Osorio: Exactly. Right. So we want to create the talent that we have. We want to stimulate the young people to say, “Hey, you know, I can do something as well for my country. I can come here, learn about technology, and new things to produce vaccines.” What I also like to have is innovation, okay? And what I have done is bring technology that has been used, for example, in mRNA vaccines. We can now make mRNA vaccines here.

Finance Colombia: Messenger RNA. 

Jorge Osorio: Like the vaccine that COVID, that Pfizer made, that was, you know, like saved the world, basically, the vaccine that was made in 11 months. We can make that here. And we can do that. So I think I’d like to have the concept of health independence, you know, that we can do health sovereignty for the region. And that our country can also… and our region, because I think more about LATAM. I’m very proud of being a Latino.

You know, we can say, you know, here we are. We can take care of things. We can do it ourselves. We can drive the economy. Change the economy of the region. You know, I think we can do that because when we export science and technology, we can change that.

Finance Colombia: A knowledge economy. It’s not good when all the laborers are local and all of the managers are from somewhere else.

Jorge Osorio: Yeah. That happens in some places. Some companies do that. You know, and I’m very proud also of the training. What we want to do is that the opportunity that I have, which someone gave me a scholarship in Wisconsin, and I can do it for a hundred people. I can do it for more people. So we are sending people to Wisconsin. It’s a good education, you know, and I want them to have that opportunity to educate themselves, to experience what it’s like to be out of their comfort zone, and to understand that they can do good things. They can do even better things than I have done. So I’m proud. We are training people now. And not just science, you know. They are getting into business development, education, accounting, all that.

Finance Colombia: Accounting, engineering, management, right.

Jorge Osorio: All that. Right. So I think that’s what we love to see happening. To change this area.

Laboratory building (photos © Loren Moss)

Finance Colombia: This is such a modern plant. It’s brand new. I remember when they announced it, we did an article about four years ago, I believe it was, you know, covering it. And I remember thinking, “Okay, well, you know, it’s a concept. Let’s see.”

Jorge Osorio: “Let’s see what happens.”

Finance Colombia: And it wasn’t that I didn’t believe it, but, you know, I live very close to here. And when I saw the construction begin on the site, I was like, “Oh, this is real. This is coming.”

Jorge Osorio: This is real.

Finance Colombia: You know, and here it is.

Jorge Osorio: And also, one very important thing is the Colombian talent: the engineers, the architects, who took the concept, we had the best advisors from India and other places that have built manufacturing facilities all over the world. We took that concept and we have to translate that to the local language here because nobody here has made a facility like this before. And it’s not so simple.

If I walk you through this building and you will see the level of complexity that is on every level there. It’s amazing to be able to connect the air, the energy, and all the water supplies. It’s amazing. So, to me, I’m also proud to say this was built by local companies, you know, that did that work. But we brought the best technology and equipment from around the world. This is what makes me very proud of it, that we have done that.

So, you can see that in three and a half years, this is what we have, you know, and I think it’s really…We have had visitors from all over the world now, different companies that have said, you know, like you said, “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know if those guys are going to come up with anything.” But look at it now.

Finance Colombia: When you saw SURA behind it, you know, SURA is a multinational. It’s Colombian, based in Medellín. It’s a company that already has assets and operations, and they, you know, they go far beyond everything from health insurance to car insurance to all different types of asset management and things like that. So, certainly that backing, I would imagine, gives you the financial stability.

Jorge Osorio: It does. That’s why I made that major commitment, because for a long time I wanted to do this, but people will say: “you know, I’ll give you $500,000.” This takes more than that, you know. So, when I first started this project, I told SURA, well, this is going to cost probably $100 million. In the first year, you’re going to cost maybe about $15 million. Say, okay, what are you waiting for to get started?

So, you need to have that muscle behind, that group that tells you, you’re not going to run short of this. And that’s where I think the private sector in our economy plays a major role. This would have never happened with government funds. I’ll be honest with you. I wish I were wrong there, but you need that private muscle, insurance that says, “Hey, you know, here I’m supporting you and, you know, just keep going, keep going.”

Finance Colombia: The patience, not just the capital, but I mean, it’s kind of sad when we look at it. There are cases. I was in Cartagena, and I was in La Guajira recently, and I saw unfinished hospitals. And there’s a case right now up on the Atlantic coast, and they gave the guy the deposit to start building the hospital, and he ran off, and he’s in Miami somewhere or something like that.

Jorge Osorio: That’s crazy. That’s crazy. So, you know, I think what we have here is also my name, my credibility. I put my name on this, and I want to deliver. I want to deliver to SURA but also to my people, to my commitment that I have.

Finance Colombia: Oh, it’s helping untold millions. Something you talked about earlier that I’m also curious about, you mentioned the work that you’ve done with dengue. And dengue, I remember my first time in Nicaragua, which was before, it was back in the 90s, and there was a dengue outbreak, and I remember being in a restaurant and looking over and people like falling out, you know, and I’m sitting there, but dengue is a very technically difficult disease to create a vaccine for because the vaccine is very, very harsh, and they won’t just give it, that’s why prevention is such a cure. It’s like, look, better not to get bitten by the mosquito.

And so, that’s challenging. And so, I wonder, you know, we’re up here kind of in the mountains at 7,000 feet, but we have things like dengue and yellow fever. In tropical… I’m sure that there are some, you know, I’m not a medical person. If we go down to the Amazon, there are some things that we have parasites and things.

Jorge Osorio: We have oropouche, we have malaria, we have chikungunya, we have many, many things that are tropical diseases. But also, some of those problems, big companies don’t want to put the resources into because they are so local.

Finance Colombia: Orphan diseases. Exactly.

Jorge Osorio: We call them orphan diseases, tropical diseases. So, my goal is also to create vaccines for these types of diseases that affect our population. And now that we see climate change and we see all these issues, we see that the mosquitoes are in Florida and Texas, and all these areas there. So, it won’t be a surprise in the future if we have a major outbreak in the US or something.

Finance Colombia: Then they start paying attention.

Jorge Osorio: Then they will.

Finance Colombia: But it’s important to be able to have the capacity here so that, you know, aside from the research and things like that, if you said we need to produce something, that’s not necessarily getting enough attention, you’re not beholden to some laboratory or some charity somewhere to do it.

Jorge Osorio: That we can make the decisions ourselves. That we can have that independence to say, yes, we want to do this, or we can do this. So, I feel that is also what makes us feel proud of it. You know, we can focus on our diseases, our tropical diseases, but they can also have an impact. I was asked recently, for example, one of the vaccines that I’m working on could have a significant impact in Africa. And we could do… It’s hard to believe that, but it’s going to be true. We will do a technology transfer from here, from Colombia to Africa.

Finance Colombia: Oh, yeah?

Jorge Osorio: That makes me very proud, too.

Finance Colombia: Exactly. Because Colombia is now a donor country, whereas 50 years ago, it was a recipient country.

Jorge Osorio: Exactly. So, we can change a few things, but we can also be more involved in this global partnership that we can be part of this network. And we are now part of this network that is also making vaccines and biologicals for all over the world. I think that’s what we wanted to do.

Finance Colombia: That’s great. It’s got to be a, I know it’s a source of pride for you, but also for Paisas, for Antioquia, for Medellín, Rionegro, of course, and then for all of Colombia. And like you mentioned, for Latin America, it’s great to see Colombia taking a leadership role. We hear about Brazil doing things and Mexico doing things, but now Colombia is part of that top tier.

Jorge Osorio: Totally. I feel that that’s what makes us proud. And this is not just an Antioquia or Rionegro project, it’s a nationwide project. And I see more of a regional project, of the entire region. I was in Rio last week as part of this global vaccine research network, and it’s the partnerships that we are doing with people from companies in Brazil, companies in Argentina. You mentioned Mexico, Nicaragua, all those countries, and Cuba as well. And we partner with them. We want to work together with them. So, I think I see this is how we can work together and show that Colombia is going to be on the map. It’s going to be on the map of biotechnology, which I’d like to see happening.

Finance Colombia: Absolutely. It’s so amazing what you’re doing here. I’d love to see if you could kind of give us a tour and show us the cool stuff.

Jorge Osorio: So, let’s, I want to show you what my dream is. Ok?

We’re gonna go there but I want you to see this area here. Because we just walked by, you know, without appreciating this. Look at this. This spiral.

Finance Colombia: It’s almost like…It reminds me of the helix of DNA.

Jorge Osorio: Exactly. That’s what it is. It was made for that purpose. To have that there. We brought that in. The colors are the colors of the company. The Vaxthera colors. Which is…we’re very proud of that, you know. And here is the result. So this here is the filling facility, we are going to go into. I want to walk you through some of the areas where people work here at the facilities.

Finance Colombia: Okay. So is this like the laboratory part? Or the production part?

Jorge Osorio: So here is where we bring…You’re gonna see the Rolls-Royce of equipment. Which is very exciting. This equipment took about three years to build. Two and a half years. It was built in Germany. Bausch. Custom-made for us. With a lot of sacrifice and pain from us. Because we have to deal with them here and there. Bring the equipment here. And make it work here. So it takes a while.

Paul: So since we are at the final stage of the construction of the facility. We still have some activities going on inside. But we implemented some measures to minimize the contamination.

Finance Colombia: Right. And the idea is to begin production in April?

Jorge Osorio: So we are going through the process of certification. What’s called certification. And so the team here is preparing what’s called the dossier for the regulatory packaging for INVIMA to come and inspect us.

Finance Colombia: And INVIMA, it’s like the FDA.

Pressure gauges are part of an integrated building management system to prevent contamination. (photos © Loren Moss)

Jorge Osorio: Exactly. The Colombian FDA. So that’s what’s gonna happen.

Paul: So, over here we have some offices, some storage rooms. The raw materials and the consumables that we’re going to use for the manufacturing process are the access to those materials. So it’s a material airlock. So they come directly from the warehouse, and then from here we’re going to sanitize them, and then we’re going to move them into the manufacturing suite. Let’s talk about these guys, pressure gauges. So our facility works with a cascade effect. So that means that the pressure in the grade A area is higher, the highest.

So when you open a door, basically when we’re transitioning from a dirty room to a clean room, the air from the clean room is coming out into the dirty room and not the opposite. It’s like a balloon when you inflate a balloon. So you are creating pressure inside, and then if you release the air, that air is coming out. That’s the principle of the clean rooms. Right. So that’s why it’s very important to have contingencies for power. So that’s constantly monitored by the building management system. So it’s 24/7 that we monitor temperature, pressure, and humidity. So all these devices are connected to a building management system. And in real time, we can check on the computer all those conditions.

Along the way, you can see some storage rooms, some change rooms. Here in particular, we have what we call a disinfection chamber. A fumigation box. So basically, in here, all those materials that we bring from the warehouse, we are going to disinfect them using hydrogen peroxide. So any material that we want to transfer into the aseptic areas, they must be disinfected with the peroxide.

Finance Colombia: So this is one line of production, and then you’ll have multiple lines of production similar to this?

Jorge Osorio: Eventually. This is for now. We’ll have other ones in the future that will be a different technique that will be like, you know, you have seen those pre-filled syringes, we will have something like that as well.

Finance Colombia: Life-saving. Amazing. Wow.

Jorge Osorio: The water tanks that supply water for the company are based right there, so it’s a very special building, and you can see that from there all the gases and lines are piped to all the different buildings, so that comes here to this, this is the filling facility. Then we have another building, which is like the social building, where people go for lunch, and we go we will go there if you like too. You will see nice areas because I also believe that our workers need to have a nice environment to do well.

Finance Colombia: I mean look at the care that you put into the facilities and making it attractive, and an attractive place to work.

Jorge Osorio: I’ll show you that one, it’s also it’s called the potency lab, so we have about six buildings, so that’s the potency lab that for every vaccine we need to test to make sure the vaccine really meets the standards, the requirements that you need to do, so it’s a nice facility that we have, we can walk through it if you like.

They do a few things here, okay, offices, pharmaceutical chemistry, you know, and then inside there, there is the facilities where they do all the potency testing of the vaccine, of the work, yeah, okay, so that would be inside behind there.

Finance Colombia: Wow, amazing, this is so great to see a modern… not just a facility here, but like I said, it’s just as impressive because it’s domestic. You know, it’s one thing if I don’t know, let’s say Pfizer, yes, puts a  Pfizer says, “we’re going to put a factory in Colombia.” That’s great, but this is Colombian.

Jorge Osorio: It’s all made in Colombia, you know, this is what we’re doing.

Finance Colombia: When it’s fully staffed, how many people will you have?

Jorge Osorio: Likely more than 500. At this point, we have about 150 employees, and this is the plant facility, but we have a research lab in Medellín. We are making a lot of progress in a lot of things, very soon, probably, so number one: we’re moving the facility into the Invima regulatory package, so INVIMA is going to come to visit; we had a major announcement with the government, we announced about a month ago that Vaxthera, the Ministry of Health, and the National Institute of Health, signed an agreement to build capacity locally for the next 10 years. So we’re working together, Vaxthera will help the Institute of National Health to make vaccines as well, okay, because we cannot make all the vaccines ourselves. And it’s good to have partners, and to have them as partners of the government, it would be good for all of us.

One of the vaccine packaging lines deep in the heart of the facility. (photos © Loren Moss)

Finance Colombia: I mean, not just for Colombia, because when you increase capacity, then you’re able to help your neighbors. And not just that, but the whole licensing agreement… because when you guys develop the intellectual property, then you can go and license it, not just to other Colombian organizations, but around the world.

Jorge Osorio: That’s what we’re doing, you got it right. We got, last year, our first patent, for a vaccine that would protect against different variants of COVID, and that vaccine, now, it will also protect against Mpox; Mpox is a virus that is affecting people in Africa. So it’s going to be amazing that we will support some African countries, you know, to develop that vaccine, because we have made it here. We are going to make shingles here, too.

I’m so happy with SURA, because when we had this discussion with SURA, there were some people here in Colombia that were skeptical, saying, “Those guys are not going to do it, you know, they’re never going to be able to do this, or also, where are you going to find the people to do this.”

Finance Colombia: So you’re proving them wrong.

Jorge Osorio: Exactly right, so I’m very happy with that. We have all this space to grow. So take a look, we have all this space, okay? And we have access, we bought the land, this is from our neighbors, we bought them from a family, and that family is very proud of doing this. The owner of the land said, “I want my land to belong to this dream of having the facility here, to do something good.” We have areas here to grow, that we can build, in addition to what we can do here, we have space that we can build more, and there’s even a space behind there.

Finance Colombia: This is only phase one. You have all this space to grow.

Jorge Osorio: It’s going to be nice. And you see, we have the airport right next door, so many vaccines that we can make here.

Finance Colombia: You can ship them instantly anywhere in the world.

Jorge Osorio: Yeah, it’s gonna be nice. And I’m also hosting a scientific event, I’m part of a scientific network, which I want you to know that it’s called PanDengue, from April 21st to the 24th, and there are going to be scientists from all over the Americas coming here.

Finance Colombia: Oh great.

Jorge Osorio: And we’re going to keep hosting events here; there are going to be scientists from Europe, from Africa coming here as well. And I want to make the case, you know, why this could be a good investment, you know, because some people might be afraid of investing in LATAM. We expect next year to have vaccines with the label Vaxthera. Next year, and hopefully, the government will approve them, and we should be in good shape, so this also makes me proud.

Finance Colombia: And like I said, it’s just so impressive to see this happening right here, you know, 15 minutes from where I live, and even more so, it’s not like some big company from Europe or the US, or China, or China said, “We’re going to put a factory in Colombia,” which is good, you know, that’s great, that’s fine, but no, but this is Colombian, and that’s what’s so cool.

For the first time, representatives of the National Government, the departmental governments and Colombian Universities approved the prioritization and viability of 55 projects that enhance the region’s laboratories. Projects include upgrades, adaptation and certification of existing laboratories, enhancements in biosecurity, infrastructure, equipment and supplies, and the training of personnel in disease diagnosis.

With this allocation, 27 departments of the country will have 88 laboratories prepared for the coronavirus pandemic in addition to other more established maladies in Colombia such as Chikungunya, Malaria and Dengue Fever and eventual epidemiological situations featuring high risk biological agents. Affecting human health that may occur.

Distribution by department 

Photo courtesy Minciencias

Only female Aedes aegypti bite humans — in the process transmitting dangerous diseases including Zika, dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever — while the modified “Friendly Aedes” males should have no adverse health effects and suppress the mosquito population.

Cali plans to deploy the solution in its Comuna 16 neighborhood that is home to around 100,000 residents. This “initial project,” according to Oxitec, is expected to begin after the necessary permits and licenses are finalized.

“This single urban-dwelling mosquito species has been responsible for the vast majority of dangerous viruses transmitted to our residents leading to a variety of health disorders,” said Alex Durán, health secretary of Cali. “We are enthusiastic about the adoption of such an innovative solution and are excited to get the program underway as expeditiously as possible.”

Results from a similar rollout in Piracicaba, Brazil, showed an 81% suppression rate in the local mosquito population, according to Oxitec, which got its start in 2002 through Oxford University Innovation and was bought for $160 million USD in 2015 by U.S.-based Intrexon Corp.

Other trials have taken place in Panama, the Cayman Islands and Brazil, where the high-profile Zika outbreak in 2016 had devastating health effects, including microcephaly-related birth defects, for unborn babies and caused many people to cancel plans to attend the Olympics in Rio. Colombia has suffered through major outbreaks of both Zika and chikungunya in recent years on top of the long-standing instances of dengue and other diseases the persist in the tropical Andean nation. The company says that some trials have shown mosquito population reductions of more than 90%.

In addition to measuring the overall Aedes aeypti population numbers, researchers and officials can individually track the offspring of the “friendly” males through an inherited “fluorescent marker that allows tracking and monitoring at a level never before achieved, making the assessment of effectiveness more accurate,” said the company in a statement. Oxitec notes that its genetically modified males also “die along with their offspring, and therefore do not persist in the environment or leave any ecological footprint.”

Around 20,000 pregnant women in Colombia were confirmed to have contracted Zika during the country’s epidemic in 2015 and 2016. At least 475 cases of microcephaly were recorded in 2016, some four times the historic rate in Colombia, according to a report from the country’s national health department and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The bank stresses that it wants more than just ideas. The institution is looking for candidates with “a solution or product already under operation (not just an idea), or at least a viable product currently being tested by users in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

Those with the most-promising pitches will get to go to the capital of Argentina on November 15 to sell their project in front of the jury of judges at Venture Night. The best proposal submitted will even get an all-expenses-paid invitation to the event. Then, after all the cases are heard, up to a dozen winners will be selected. Three will get the prestigious IDB-FEMSA Water Prize and others will be rewarded with an intensive day-and-half program to support their growth, along with the chance to meet experienced mentors.

Venture Night is reserved for “the most innovative and disruptive startups from Latin America and the Caribbean.” The IDB encourages anyone with an innovative solution for improving lives in the following categories to make their submissions now.

Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene

• Improving water sanitation (systems, applications, programs, games, etc.)
• Producing applications and programs for water data
• Creating innovative hygiene systems (domestic water treatment, toilets, hand-washing habits, water, recycling, etc.)
• Improving water quality (techniques, applications, systems, platforms, programs, etc.) and monitoring systems
• Mobile solutions and applications against infectious diseases such as: cholera, malaria, dengue, trachoma, schistosomiasis, worm infections, Guinea worm disease, neglected tropical diseases, chikungunya, and zika among others.

Health

• Closing the existing maternal and child health indices gaps
• Improving nutrition during pregnancy and early infancy
• Checking the growing incidence of non-communicable chronic diseases
• Promoting healthy nutrition and eating habits
• Creating healthcare technology and design
• Cloud labs
• Mobile technology applications, 3D printing, robotics, virtual reality for health.

The full contest rules can be found on the Inter-American Development Bank website. Other questions should be sent to demandsolutions@iadb.org or agua@iadb.org.

President Obama President announced a new framework for bilateral cooperation in the event of a peace accord with the FARC: Peace Colombia.  Peace Colombia intends to focus future US assistance on consolidating and expanding progress on security and counternarcotics while reintegrating the FARC into society; Expanding state presence and institutions to strengthen the rule of law and rural economies, especially in former conflict areas; and promoting justice and other essential services for conflict victims.

Above photo courtesy U.S. Government

As part of that framework and to support the peace accord implementation, President Obama will request more than $390 million in FY 2017 bilateral foreign assistance from the US Congress.  The Obama Administration will also request funds in FY 2017 for other ongoing programs that would contribute to Peace Colombia goals such as humanitarian assistance to vulnerable populations and Department of Defense counternarcotics programs that, if enacted by the Congress, would increase the United States’ overall level of financial involvement to over $450 million.

“Today’s Colombia is much, much different from the Colombia of 15 years ago.  Our country at that time was going through the worst economic recession of the last 70 or 80 years.  We were very far from controlling our own territory, and we were very close to being declared a failed state.  Practically a third of our national territory was controlled by paramilitaries.  Another third was being controlled by the guerrillas, and both were financed by drug trafficking.  We had a very dark and uncertain future,” stated Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos. 

Santos continued: “Today, the outlook is completely opposite.  Today, we see the future with hope.  We’ve gone from the worst economic recession in our recent history to being leaders in economic growth in Latin America.  And not just in growth; we are also leaders in job creation, in reducing poverty, in strengthening our middle class.  We have gone from these shameful international championship in being the first in murders and kidnappings to have the lowest indexes of these crimes that we’ve ever had in the last four years.  And despite the increase over the last two years in coca cultivation in Colombia, almost 60 percent of that cultivation has gone down.  The number of rural families that are involved in this business of cultivating coca has been reduced by two-thirds.”

Former Colombian presidents Alvaro Uribe and Andres Pastrana were invited to the visit, but only Pastrana attended. According to the White House, violence in Colombia is at its lowest level since 1973, including a 50% drop in homicides and a 90% decline in kidnappings since 2002.  Thanks in part to increased security, Colombia’s economy has grown an average of 4.3% since 2007 and unemployment and poverty are at historic lows.  US support through Plan Colombia has helped Colombia expand and professionalize its armed forces and police, strengthen investigations of organized crime and human rights violations, implement a landmark Victims and Land Restitution Law, provide opportunities to Afro-Colombian communities such as the Palenque, and indigenous communities such as the Wayúu, and establish a program to protect journalists, labor leaders, human rights defenders, and other vulnerable individuals.

“From Cartagena to the campo, there’s no denying Colombia’s remarkable transformation.  Today’s Colombia is a country of artists and entrepreneurs and dynamic cities.  In the barrios of Medellin, new businesses — along with giant outdoor escalators up the hillsides — are quite literally lifting people out of poverty.  Children who once hid in fear now have the chance to pursue their dreams.  In short, a country that was on the brink of collapse is now on the brink of peace.  I had the privilege of seeing some of this extraordinary change myself when I visited Cartagena.  I still believe what I said then:  In Colombia today, there is hope,” said President Barack Obama.

“Now, fully realizing that hope requires a just and lasting peace.  So, President Santos, I’ve said to you privately and I want to reiterate publicly how much I admire the great courage and resolve that you’ve shown in pursuing negotiations to end the war.  You’ve committed to an agreement that upholds Colombia’s national and international legal obligations, and you’ve put victims at the center of this process.  I want to thank all of the parties for their efforts, including the government of Cuba for hosting the talks.  We all know that it’s easier to start wars than end them,” continued Obama.

President Obama announced that the United States will join with Norway to launch a Global Demining Initiative to help Colombia meet its Ottawa Convention commitment to being mine-free by 2021.  Colombia has the second highest number of landmine victims in the world behind Afghanistan.  The United States will commit $33 million to the Global Demining Initiative for Colombia in Fiscal Year 2017.  Norway will contribute an additional $20 million.  Argentina, Canada, Chile, the European Union, Japan, Mexico, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay have agreed to join the initiative.  The United States, Norway, and Colombia will host a Meeting of Experts in May 2016, where participating countries will be able to familiarize themselves with Colombia’s demining challenges and coordinate appropriate donation mechanisms.

Bilateral efforts underway to combat the mosquito-borne Zika virus

Building on previous collaboration on health and infectious diseases, the United States and Colombia also agreed to accelerate investigations into the range of health impacts of the Zika virus and joint research into the Zika virus and the development of diagnostics, vaccines, and vector control tools to control the virus and mitigate its potential impacts.

The United States and Colombia invite applicants interested in collaborating with Colombian counterparts to work on Zika, particularly diagnostics. Interested individuals or entities are encouraged to contact ESF-Program@state.gov.

Regarding Zika, the United States and Colombia have agreed to:

• Share epidemiologic data and specimen samples, as deemed appropriate, to enhance our mutual understanding of Zika and advance research and development of new diagnostics, vaccines, and vector control tools.
• Engage joint research efforts to:

• assess the health of pregnant mothers, infants, and children to better understand the potential link between Zika infection and birth outcomes (including microcephaly), other neurological conditions, and impacts of Zika virus on the health of children;
• estimate the prevalence of microcephaly in Colombia and the change in incidence rates over time to determine whether there is causality of Zika virus infection and microcephaly; and
• assess risk factors associated with Zika virus infections and microcephaly or Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

• Conduct joint epidemiologic investigations of infections through the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Colombia’s Instituto Nacional de Salud.
• As members of Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), commit to work regionally and multi-sectorally to establish capacity to prevent, detect, and respond effectively to infectious agents such as the Zika virus.
• Utilize the United States-Colombia Science and Technology Agreement to promote cooperation in areas such as Colombia’s Field Epidemiology Training Program, infectious disease surveillance, and emergency response.
• Develop technical cooperation activities to strengthen the Colombian Instituto Nacional de Salud and Ministry of Health to improve their diagnostic, research, intervention and evaluation capacities in epidemics control of vector-borne diseases, such as Zika, dengue and chikungunya, as well as potential secondary effects.
• Promote science cooperation through the Department of State’s Embassy Science Fellow Program.