Global Health and Science

When mothers held up their infants to receive a promising experimental malaria vaccine in Bagamoyo, Tanzania, Burness Communications was there. When health ministers from across Latin America issued a call for improved treatment of childhood diarrheal diseases; when the Government of Vietnam launched a nation-wide campaign to end blindness caused by trachoma; when inmates in a high-security Mexican prison learned the facts about HIV and shared their stories with policy makers and journalists, Burness was there.

For more than 15 years, Burness Communications has been working with global health organizations and champions to communicate the issues that mean life or death to millions around the world. We work with our clients to develop the messages, frame the campaigns, tell the stories, and promote them all on a global scale.

Our work has helped build support for investments in research and life-saving public health interventions. We have tackled issues including the development of a malaria vaccine and the expansion of existing childhood vaccine delivery. We have worked to amplify our clients’ voices in the struggle for increased laboratory diagnostic capacity; improved disease surveillance and diagnostics; funding for basic biomedical research, and formulation of evidence-based global health policy for fighting HIV and tuberculosis. At the core of this work has been the effort to make the fruits of scientific progress available to all who would benefit—particularly the millions of children who die each year from preventable diseases.

We have:

• Advanced the efforts of organizations like the GAVI Alliance and the Albert B. Sabin Vaccine institute to close the global vaccine gap, bringing vaccines that are ubiquitous in industrialized nations to millions in the developing world who lack access to them.
• Supported the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative’s quest for the world’s first-ever malaria vaccine.
• Shed light on the threat of simultaneous HIV and TB infection with the Center for Global Health Policy and the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research.
• Worked with the Paul G. Rogers Society to train an elite corps of Global Health Ambassadors to advocate for research in global health in U.S. policy circles.
• Advised WGBH on its comprehensive outreach campaign for the spectacular PBS series, Rx for Survival.
• Highlighted novel treatments, interventions and preventive measures in the fight against HIV with the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research, the American Society for Clinical Pathology, Results for Development and Population Services International.