Colleagues from University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB) were recently invited to Rwanda to meet with the Director General of the Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC), the National Health Implementation Agency of Rwanda. 

The visit provided an opportunity to review the progress made over several years of collaboration in bringing vaccine innovation to African communities. 

Christopher Green, Lead Vaccine Principal Investigator, Jo Plumb, Director of Research, Development and Innovation, and Siobhan Roche, Vaccine Research Project Manager, were among the colleagues who took part in the visit. 

The post-pandemic landscape of vaccines for infectious diseases has been greatly supported by the NIHR/Wellcome Clinical Research Facility at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) through experimental vaccine trials. 

These trials explore exciting technologies that were first accelerated by the pandemic and are now being re-purposed to target other major outstanding global health priorities.  

The vaccine research programme in Rwanda, led by Christopher Green, is helping to shape how these innovations can achieve their full impact in low- or middle-income country (LMIC) communities across sub-Saharan Africa. 

During their visit, the team led a site initiation visit for the first Ebola vaccine co-administration trial in Africa (the EbolaCov study) at the Center for Family Health Research (CFHR) in Kigali. In addition, they visited the Rwanda Ministry of Health to share their expertise on delivery of new vaccine trials that would benefit the African population.   

They also attended a workshop held at the Africa Centre for Excellence in Sustainable Cooling and Cold Chain (ACES). ACES is a central hub that provides sustainable solutions to cold-chain challenges, ensuring the safe delivery of vaccines for all preventable diseases. 

This collaborative work between UHB, the University of Birmingham, and the Government of Rwanda spans the whole system – from new vaccine design and innovations to immune diagnostics, which measure immunity levels in populations to assess vaccine effectiveness and identify future needs for deployment. 

It also includes novel vaccine delivery methods such as using automated drones, and complex models that use real-world evidence to support vaccine policy makers and health implementation agencies.  

This long-term commitment builds on lessons from the pandemic to establish sustainable, robust partnerships aimed at addressing future public health threats both here and across Africa.  

NHS doctors and nurses from UHB have played a key role in vaccine projects in the UK and Rwanda. A recent example is the rapid response to Mpox (also known as monkeypox) last year, where NHS infectious disease experts arrived in Rwanda within 72 hours of the WHO’s outbreak declaration. 

Many UK clinicians and Rwandan scientists are also pursuing vaccine-related PhDs to ensure the long-term success of this approach. 

Ongoing collaboration and shared expertise in vaccine science will be essential in tackling future outbreaks and addressing the challenges posed by climate change. 

To ensure long-term success, Christopher Green and Jo Plumb are leading a review of progress and return on investment to date. They are also exploring research training programmes to strengthen workforce capacity in both the UK and Africa, which will drive the programme forward and maximise the impact of experimental vaccine science for those who need it most.