On December 4, IVI and the World Health Organization co-hosted a joint consultation on the sidelines of the 13th International Conference on Typhoid & Other Invasive Salmonelloses in Kigali, Rwanda. The event was organized by the iNTS FVVA project team, a joint project between IVI and WHO sponsored by the Wellcome Trust.
The objectives of this consultation were to: 1) gather opinions and perspectives from key stakeholders and subject-matter experts on the different options of Salmonella combination vaccines to better inform developers, immunization policy decision-makers and donors for the best suitable way forward and 2) identify current gaps in understanding the value of and/or needs for accelerating the development of the most appropriate Salmonella combination vaccine(s) and define priorities to address those gaps.
The event began with opening remarks from meeting Chair Dr. Deborah King (Vaccines Research Lead, Wellcome Trust) and was followed by two presentations framing the upcoming group discussion. Dr. Ana Ibarz Pavon (Department of Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals, WHO) provided a high-level overview of invasive salmonella disease and highlighted present gaps in informing decisions regarding vaccine development strategy. Prof. Calman MacLennan (Senior Program Officer, Bacterial Vaccines, Global Health – Enteric & Diarrheal Diseases, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) then presented on Salmonella vaccine pipelines and Salmonella/Shigella combination options.
After moving to open discussion, subject-matter experts explored pivotal questions covering key issues such as: the benefits of region-specific vaccines based on disease burden, prioritization of research gaps for a maximum impact of Salmonella vaccines, needs and requirements for immunogenicity versus clinical efficacy data, Controlled Human Infection Model (CHIM), regulatory perspectives, immunological assay standardization, and marketability, including manufacture risk and acceptability of a combination salmonella vaccine. The short consultation is a preamble to a more in-depth analysis of these issues in a follow-up consultation in 2024.
We would like once again thank everyone who contributed to this engaging and productive session. For more information on the iNTS FVVA project, please visit https://inovvel.org/.