The Corea Image Communication Institute led a group of Korean and foreign participants in the 16th session of its Korea CQ Forum at the International Vaccine Institute on Seoul National University campus last week.

CICI generally focuses on South Korea’s image abroad. For its last session of the year, the organization sought instead to introduce one of the two international organizations with headquarters in Seoul, because IVI is a group that both Koreans and foreigners here should know about, said CICI president Choi Jung-hwa.

IVI discovers, develops and delivers vaccines to developing nations. It was set up in 1997 from the United Nations Development Program, making it the first international organization with headquarters here.

It is focused on developing better, cheaper vaccines for typhoid fever and cholera ― preventable diseases that devastate poor nations in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

An estimated 21 million cases of typhoid fever result in 200,000 deaths a year worldwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are up to 5 million cases of cholera with 120,000 resulting in death annually, according to the World Health Organization.

“These diseases are killers but what is worse of all is that they are entirely preventable, with the right vaccines,” said Christian Luocq, director general of IVI.

The first licensed vaccine that IVI developed, Shanchol, an oral cholera vaccine which is cheaper and more practical to administer, was used to help fight cholera after the earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010, Loucq said.

By Philip Iglauer (ephilip2011@heraldcorp.com)