Research Targets Human Vaccination for Rift Valley Fever
Global health researchers at the University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka have been called on to help combat a major epidemic-prone disease.
Researchers in the Otago Global Health Institute are part of an international consortium recently awarded a Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) grant for its work on Rift Valley Fever virus and disease.
Institute Director Professor John Crump says illness transmitted to humans by mosquitoes and contact with infected livestock is an historically neglected endemic disease in Africa and the Middle East, but its epidemic or pandemic potential has major implications for human and livestock health worldwide.
Despite the World Health Organization and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention recognising it as a priority disease for research and development, its burden is poorly characterised, its transmission between large outbreaks that happen in Africa and the Middle East every 5-20 years is not well understood, and no vaccines are currently available or licensed for human use.
As climate change evolves, expanding the range of mosquitoes and increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events such as flooding, there is a risk that Rift Valley fever outbreaks will become more frequent and widespread threatening health and livelihoods well beyond traditionally affected areas in Africa and the Middle East making a protective human vaccine all the more urgent.
The project, which is led by Professor Crump’s longstanding collaborators at the Kilimanjaro Clinical Research Institute in Tanzania and which will receive a CEPI grant worth up to NZ$5.7 million, is known as the Rift Valley Fever Epidemiology and Modelling to Inform Vaccine Efficacy Trials (REMIT).
The New Zealand Government is an investor in CEPI and the grant is the first awarded to a coalition involving Otago.
“I think it is important for New Zealanders to know they are contributing to pandemic and epidemic preparedness, and that we are part of the scientific effort through the University of Otago’s research strength in global health.
“We will be assessing whether it is feasible to do large scale vaccine trials to both address the disease where it is endemic, whether we can predict epidemics accurately to pre-position vaccine trials, and to prepare countermeasures in the event of a spreading epidemic or global pandemic,” Professor Crump says.
Vaccine efficacy trials involve thousands of participants and are typically one of the final steps before licensure of a vaccine. However, without better knowledge on where Rift Valley Fever occurs, who it affects, and how the disease manifests, research bodies like CEPI are unable to plan whether an efficacy study can demonstrate how well a vaccine works.
The investigators will incorporate additional datasets from East, South, and West Africa into their work. By combining a range of data from the wider continent and building on dynamic and spatial models of Rift Valley Fever, the researchers aim to predict where, when and how frequently human Rift Valley Fever infections and illnesses may occur across Africa as a whole.
The team will also examine whether reports of livestock affected with Rift Valley Fever could act as an early warning system for new human outbreaks and will explore people’s perceptions and attitudes to Rift Valley Fever vaccination.
Professor Crump says, given the complex nature of Rift Valley Fever transmission, both projects will take a One Health approach to their work, recognising that the health of people, livestock, wildlife, and the environment with climate are closely linked and interdependent.
More on Rift Valley Fever
https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/newsroom/human-vaccination-focus-of-rift-valley-fever-research