In the recent years an unprecedented effort has been made to increase the rates of childhood immunization in resource poor countries. This has translated into an increased number of children receiving vaccines and a parallel decrease in the rate of illnesses from vaccine preventable diseases. However, in some regions it has proven difficult to achieve optimal levels of immunization mainly because of issues concerning communication, management and poor utilization of resources. Recent studies have questioned the validity of available vaccine coverage data and the way they are collected. Currently, both the progress of the vaccination programs and indirectly the level of protection in a population are inferred on the basis of administrative records. This largely unverified information is also utilized as performance indicator to allocate funds from government and donor agencies. Such self-certification practice does not incentivize the optimization of resources while it has been increasingly questioned in terms of its validity and integrity.
The aim of Vaccine Survey project is to develop and validate an innovative technical solution based on an assay system that integrates multiplex capability and analytical performance, to simultaneously quantify antibody levels against the major vaccine components, with both automation and wireless connectivity to produce spatial-temporal co-ordinates of individual determinations. The multiplex capability will facilitate the analysis of cross coverage monitoring while generating reactivity profiles against the different vaccine components to discriminate vaccinated versus infected individuals.
Spatial temporal co-ordinates of assay results will be used to generate interactive data sets for modelling changes in the age-specific risk of infection and the risk of outbreaks. The proposed system represents a formidable tool of unprecedented power to monitor the progress of different vaccination programs and experimentally validate record based coverage data.
The work will demonstrate the capability of a multiplex micro-array immunoassay platform of minimal complexity to detect and quantify serum antibodies against tetanus, diphtheria, hepatitis B, Hemophilus, meningococcus mumps, poliomyelitis rotavirus, rubella, measles and yellow fever and its suitability for monitoring surveillance of immunization programs in field settings. The multiplex format will improve the throughput, reduce assay costs and provide, at the same time, innovative means to discriminate vaccinated versus infected individuals on the basis of their reactivity profiles.
The project addresses the need to build monitoring capacity at laboratory level and to generate high quality data to expand and strengthen the monitoring infrastructure of the vaccine preventable diseases (VPDs) surveillance and immunization programs (Global Framework for Immunization Monitoring and Surveillance). The expected outcome, a multiplex assay for quantifying antibody levels to vaccines combining powerful information technology solutions, will allow the implementation of quality control procedures for validating administrative data and for guiding the allocation of government and donor-supported resources. Furthermore, evidence-based knowledge of population immunity is more important than ever when considering the rising costs of new vaccines, waning immunity, and the high proportion in several African countries of individuals that are HIV infected whose immune response following vaccination is less predictable.
These unique features also address the emerging demand to link information across different vaccination programs.
Vaccine Survey’s partner institutions include: Imperial College London, UK, University of Perugia, Italy, University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Italy, Genialis, Lubiana, Polo d’Innovazione di Genomica Genetica e Biologia, Italy, Mtm, UK, Ministere de La Sante, Burkina Faso.
VACCINE SURVEY Project is funded by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions that aims to support the career development and training of researchers – with a focus on innovation skills – in all scientific disciplines through international and intersectoral mobility. The primary objective of the Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) scheme is to “promote international and inter-sector collaboration through research and innovation staff exchanges, and sharing of knowledge and ideas from research to market (and vice-versa) for the advancement of science and the development of innovation.”
The video has been created with the contribution of the European Community – H2020 -MSCA-RISE 2014
“Monitor population immunity against vaccine preventable diseases” project.
