Dr Christopher Green, Associate Clinical Professor and Consultant Physician in Infectious Diseases at University Hospitals Birmingham and the University of Birmingham, and member of the CO-CIN subcommittee of SAGE and lead the COVID-19 vaccine trials in Birmingham during the pandemic said:
“The Mpox outbreak in Africa is a major concern and we know from experience the need to rapidly develop scientific countermeasures to help contain this. This includes a better understanding of the disease, how to use data that comes from the immune system, and how to best deploy limited vaccine stocks to achieve as much impact as possible where it is needed.
"Through our work at ACES, we have superb expertise with our Rwandan partners and many African countries are affected by this outbreak”
Alex Richter, Professor and Consultant Physician in Immunology at the University of Birmingham who developed immune diagnostic tools essential for COVID-19 surveillance and control said:
“The immune system is key to understanding everything from infection, disease, outcomes and transmission. Antibodies can be used to understand the unseen burden of exposure to the virus, and highlight where immunity gaps in the population are in most need of vaccine protection.”
Partnership essential
Claude Muvunyi, Director General of Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC) said:
“RBC works toward safeguarding the national health security, support improving health in Africa, and strengthening the global health security. It operates over 60 units, divisions, and departments that work under a unified leadership with focus on strategic planning, research, innovation, and development to improve the early detection, robust integrated surveillance and response systems.
"The health professional workforce of RBC include about 60,000 highly trained community health workers that deliver high quality healthcare at home and in communities to bring universal healthcare coverage at the near sight. The vision is of becoming a Center of Excellence for the prosperity, equality in health service, and universal coverage with high quality education and research in the region.
"RBC leverages its resources, partners, and stakeholders to strengthen the surveillance, preparedness, prevention, and response to outbreaks and pandemics at national, regional, and global levels.”
Rwanda was one of only four African nations to achieve the WHO targets for COVID-19 vaccine deployment during the pandemic.
Jo Plumb, Director of Research Development & Innovation, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust said:
“The NHS and NIHR played a major role in conducting clinical vaccine trials and other key research that ultimately resulted in safely ending the COVID-19 pandemic for many. Our vaccine research staff have supported the work in Rwanda since the end of the pandemic, as part of our global responsibility to share knowledge, experience and build vaccine research capacity in parts of the world that need this expertise to save lives.”
Toby Peters, Professor in the Cold Economy at the University of Birmingham said:
“The vaccine cold-chain is critical national infrastructure and through the collaborative work at ACES in Rwanda we are working to design and deliver the needs of future vaccine security and deployment. What is important is getting vaccines safely to the population at risk and it is great we can use our on the ground capabilities to support this urgent work to better protect against Mpox.”
The primary aim is to help measures needed to protect the Rwandan population and to develop the knowledge and tools that can be adopted by other African nations. The lessons learnt from COVID-19 require immediate implementation in East Africa and the UK-Rwanda multi-agency collaboration will continue to build scientific capacity and resilience in this front-line of global health.
