IVI and Belgium

 

Belgian Leadership at IVI

 

From 2013 to 2015, Dr. Georges Thiry served as Deputy Director General of the Portfolio Management Unit.

 

Ongoing Collaboration

 

Severe Typhoid in Africa Plus / Surveillance for TCV Impact Assessment in Africa (SETA+/STIA)

IVI launched the SETA program in 2015 in six countries: Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, and Nigeria to collect standardized data on typhoid fever disease incidence, severity, sequelae, and economic burden in addition to invasive salmonellosis incidence and severity. The program was successfully completed at the end of 2019 and transitioned to SETA Plus (except Ethiopia) in 2020 following further funding. Surveillance was completed at the end of 2022.

 

To date, the largest case numbers have been identified in the DRC and Nigeria, including severe typhoid and intestinal perforation cases. Further characterization of disease severity, the extent of carriage of pathogens in stool, patterns of antibiotic consumption, prevalence of resistance, and cost-of-illness data are underway.

 

SETA Plus surveillance has provided valuable evidence to support national decision-making processes for TCV roll-out. In Burkina Faso, a typhoid stakeholder meeting concluded with the decision to introduce typhoid vaccination, and Malagasy officials from the newly established National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NITAG) are reviewing typhoid burden data in the country.

 

In December 2022, IVI hosted the first Africa Regional Meeting on Typhoid and Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine in Cape Town, South Africa to accelerate vaccine introduction in typhoid-endemic countries.

 

From 2024, the project continues as STIA until the end of 2025.

 

The Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium is a key collaborator in SETA+/STIA.

 

Previous Collaboration

 

Typhoid Conjugate Vaccine Introduction in Africa program (THECA)

THECA was a consortium led by the University of Cambridge Department of Medicine and funded by a €13 million Euro grant from the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP). From 2019-2023, this project assessed the safety, feasibility and cost-effectiveness of typhoid vaccine and its ability to limit the spread of antimicrobial resistance.

 

THECA encompassed five projects: a Phase IV cluster-randomized trial of Typbar-TCV® involving children aged nine months to 16 years in Ghana; a Typbar-TCV® mass vaccination campaign with a prospective cohort evaluation of vaccine effectiveness in the Democratic Republic of Congo; a vaccination campaign with effectiveness evaluation of the TYPHIBEV® vaccine in Madagascar; and advocacy support for the introduction of TCV in Burkina Faso.

 

Within these studies, post vaccination enhanced surveillance was integrated into the SETA+ hospital-based surveillance area, enhancing case detection and supporting the calculation of vaccine impact at both individual and population levels.

 

The Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium was a key collaborator in THECA.