| Peter Aaby | |||||
| Birth Date: | 6 November 1944 | ||||
| Birth Place: | Lund, Sweden | ||||
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Peter Aaby (Danish, born 1944 in Lund, Sweden) is trained as an anthropologist but also holds a doctoral degree in medicine.[1] In 1978, Peter Aaby established the Bandim Health Project, a Health and Demographic Surveillance System site in Guinea-Bissau in West Africa, which he has run ever since.[2] In 2000, Peter Aaby was awarded the Novo Nordisk Prize, the most important Danish award within health research.
Aaby is credited for the discovery of non-specific effects of vaccines – i.e. effects of vaccines, which go beyond the specific protective effects against the targeted diseases.[3] The theory of non-specific effects of vaccines was established in 1991 and later documented in several trials on measles vaccine, BCG, oral polio vaccine, DTP vaccine and smallpox vaccine.[4] As a consequence of Aaby's work on non-specific effects of vaccines it has been recommended the WHO vaccination program in low income countries should be changed.[5] In 2008, WHO reviewed the evidence for non-specific effects of BCG vaccine, measles vaccine and DTP vaccine, and concluded that it would "keep a watch on the evidence of nonspecific effects of vaccination".[6]