Tackling human and animal health threats through innovative vaccinology in Africa

Abstract

Africa bears the brunt of many of the world's most devastating human and animal infectious diseases, a good number of which have no licensed or effective vaccines available. The continent's potential to generate novel interventions against these global health threats is however largely untapped. Strengthening Africa's vaccine research and development (R&D) sector could accelerate discovery, development and deployment of effective countermeasures against locally prevalent infectious diseases, many of which are neglected and have the capacity to spread to new geographical settings. Here, we review Africa's human and veterinary vaccine R&D sectors and identify key areas that should be prioritized for investment, and synergies that could be exploited from Africa's veterinary vaccine industry, which is surprisingly strong and has close parallels with human vaccine R&D.

Keywords: Africa; Capacity; Vaccines.

Figure 1.. Vaccine research and development (R&D) and biomanufacturing capacity in Africa.

African countries with an entry in PubMed between 1 ^st January 2013 and 31 ^st December 2017 for vaccine studies in mice (33 out of 9455 articles) or cattle (25 out of 267 articles) are shown in green and light blue, respectively. The search terms used were, 1) mice: (((mouse[title/abstract] OR mice[title/abstract]) OR murine[title/abstract]) AND (((vaccine[title/abstract] OR vaccination[title/abstract]) OR immunization[title/abstract]) OR immunisation[title/abstract])) AND (“2013/01/01”[PDAT] : “2017/31/12”[PDAT]); 2) cattle: (((cattle[title/abstract] OR cow[title/abstract]) OR bovine[title/abstract]) AND (((vaccine[title/abstract] OR vaccination[title/abstract]) OR immunization[title/abstract]) OR immunisation[title/abstract])) AND (“2013/01/01”[PDAT] : “2017/31/12”[PDAT]). African countries with an entry for phase I-IV clinical trials in ClinicalTrials.gov with a commencement date between 1 ^st Jan 2013 and 31 ^st December 2017 are shown in gray shading (111 out of 1511 registered studies). This excludes studies that have been suspended, withdrawn, terminated or those whose status is unknown. Countries with capacity for human or veterinary vaccine manufacture are shown in black and blue, respectively.