MRF Conference 2021

Impact of meningitis, patient experience and support and aftercare

Chair: Dr Senjuti Saha, Child Health Research Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Senjuti Saha is a molecular biologist based in Bangladesh. She is a Scientist and Director at the Child Health Research Foundation, where she works at the intersection of microbiology and public health. After completing her PhD in Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto in Canada, where she focused on developing novel alternatives to antimicrobials, she moved to Bangladesh to work in the front lines of public health.

Currently, she focuses on preventable pediatric infectious diseases, with the goals of (1) using modern molecular technologies including on-site metagenomics to identify etiologies that evade standard laboratory testing in resource-constrained settings, (2) establishing genomic surveillance to track and understand the molecular basis of antimicrobial resistance in endemic bacterial pathogens and (3) estimating the indirect impacts of vaccines on the overall health system of resource-constrained settings.

Currently, she also leads a large study on tracking SARS-COV-2 variants in Bangladesh and understanding the immediate and long-term impact of COVID-19 on Bangladeshi children. Her work is grounded in advancing health and research equity in Bangladesh, and beyond. She is a member of the Polio Transition Independent Monitoring Board of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, an Associate Editor of British Medical Journal Global Health, and a Section Editor of PLOS Global Public Health.

Patient experience of meningitis and septicaemia in high and low to middle income regions

Jo Kirwin
UK member of Meningitis Research Foundation

Jo is so many things that she finds it hard to describe herself in just a few words. Some of her labels include Mother of 3, special Mum, wife, biologist, eco-worrier, yoga teacher and writer.

The “Special Mum” is the most relevant here and this covers everything from carer, nurse, physio, and advocate to pushy, anxious parent. Being a special mum becomes all consuming, but she managed to retain a few elements of herself, including her obsession with horses and love of a good book. Her garden doesn’t look bad either

Adelaide Bortier
Ghana

Adelaide Naa Borley Bortier is a 26 year old Ghanaian musician with the stage name Adelaide the Seer. She is an inspirational speaker and advocate for cerebrospinal meningitis (CSM) and Persons Living with Disabilities.
Having lived a normal life for 17 years, Adelaide was diagnosed with CSM with complications of which the major was the loss of sight. Living with the impact of CSM has been a difficult and discomforting as it has altered her life in many respects including needing assistance in nearly everything she does. In spite of this, Adelaide puts up a strong spirit through her faith in God and support from family to face each day and overcome her fears and anxieties.

Rising above the challenge, she built a strong character by dedicating her life to a music career and now working a new gospel single. She is also committed to supporting people affected by CSM through her inspirational speeches and song ministrations. Adelaide is partnering organisations, institutions and other people to help bring hope to many more people beyond the shores of Ghana.

Long-term impact of meningitis– what is known now and the research challenge for the Defeating Meningitis by 2030 Roadmap

Dr. Nicoline Schiess
World Health Organization (WHO)

Dr. Nicoline Schiess is an adult neurologist and technical officer working in the Brain Health Unit in the Department of Mental Health and Substance Use at the World Health Organization. In this role Dr. Schiess serves as the liaison between WHO and various neurological associations as well as assisting in the development of the Intersectoral global action plan on epilepsy and other neurological disorders, a global plan of action for neurological disorders. Prior to WHO she worked at Johns Hopkins University specializing in neuroimmunology/neuroinfectious diseases and global neurology.

What follow up care after meningitis is expected, provided, and needed in high and low to middle income settings?

Professor Charles Newton
KEMRI Wellcome Trust

Charles Newton was born in Kenya, qualified in Cape Town, South Africa, with postgraduate training in Paediatrics in Manchester and London, United Kingdom. As a lecturer at University of Oxford, he returned to Kilifi Kenya in 1989, to help set up a unit to study severe malaria in African children. Thereafter he spent 2 years as a Post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins, USA; studying mechanisms of brain damage in central nervous system infections. He completed his training in Paediatric Neurology at Great Ormond Street Hospital, and Queens Square in London, UK.

In 1998 he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellowship at University College London, to return to Kilifi, to study central nervous system (CNS) infections in children. He conducts research on CNS infections in children; epidemiological studies of epilepsy and neurological impairment; tetanus, jaundice and sepsis in neonates. In 2011 he took up a professorship in Psychiatry at the University of Oxford to concentrate of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Epilepsy and mental illness disorders after CNS infections in Africa.

WHO Global Roadmap to Defeat Meningitis by 2030 and allied initiatives

Chair: Professor James Stuart
WHO and University of Bristol

Professor James Stuart is an honorary professor in population health sciences at the University of Bristol and is a consultant for WHO. After qualifying in medicine, James worked for ten years as a clinical doctor in the UK and rural South Africa before specialising in public health and epidemiology of infectious diseases, particularly meningococcal meningitis. He has been involved in the investigation and control of outbreaks internationally and has published extensively on the epidemiology of meningococcal disease and carriage. James has worked for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on a major research project into meningococcal carriage during the introduction of a serogroup A conjugate vaccine across the meningitis belt of Africa. In more recent years he has been working for WHO, co-ordinating revision of outbreak response guidelines for the meningitis belt and helping to develop and start implementation of the WHO roadmap on “Defeating Meningitis by 2030”. He chairs the MRF Scientific Advisory Panel.

Implementing the Global Roadmap – how are we going to do it (including the research priorities within the global roadmap: what this means for the research community)

Dr Marie-Pierre Preziosi
WHO

Marie-Pierre Preziosi is a medical officer, team lead Meningitis, Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals and co-lead R&D Blueprint for action to prevent epidemics, Universal Health Coverage Life Course, World Health Organization.

From 2012-2014, she was director of the Meningitis Vaccine Project, a partnership between WHO and PATH. The project mission was to eliminate epidemic meningitis as a public health problem in sub-Saharan Africa through the development, testing, introduction, and widespread use of meningococcal conjugate vaccines. A project member since 2003, Dr Preziosi previously served as the director of clinical development. While leading the clinical research strategy and implementation, she helped build strong relationships between partner organizations and contributed technical advice on vaccine introduction activities and research to define evidence-based policy for optimal vaccine use. She previously conducted research on pertussis vaccination, as a visiting assistant professor at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta, USA, and also for several years at the Institute for Research and Development in Senegal where she conducted pertussis vaccine trials. Her interest in vaccines started with Hib vaccine studies at Pasteur Mérieux. She received her medical degree from the Lyon University and her PhD in epidemiology from the Bordeaux University, France. She trained in tropical medicine at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, and in field epidemiology at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, USA.

Ending Cryptococcal Meningitis Deaths by 2030 – Strategic Framework

Professor Nelesh Govender
National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), Johannesburg

Nelesh Govender trained as a pathologist and epidemiologist. He heads the Centre for Healthcare-Associated Infections, Antimicrobial Resistance and Mycoses at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa. He is a Professor in the School of Pathology at the University of the Witwatersrand and Honorary Professor at the University of Exeter and the University of Cape Town. He was involved in conceptualising and drafting the Ending Cryptococcal Meningitis Deaths by 2030 strategic framework.

Defeating Paediatric Tuberculous Meningitis: Applying the WHO “Defeating Meningitis by 2030: Global Roadmap”

Dr Robin Basu Roy
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)

Dr Robin Basu Roy is part of the SURE study team – an ongoing randomised controlled trial of 6 months intensified anti-tuberculosis and 2 months anti-inflammatory treatment for HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected African and Asian children with tuberculous meningitis. The trial is coordinated by the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL with collaborators in India, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia and Zimbabwe. He is also involved in ptbnet’s (Pediatric TB network European Trials Group) retrospective multicentre tuberculous meningitis studies.

Previously, Robin worked as a Clinical Lecturer in Paediatrics at the University of Oxford for two years with Professor Andrew Pollard. His Imperial College PhD research was into paediatric immunity to M. tuberculosis infection using epidemiological, functional, cellular and molecular techniques to explore protection against tuberculosis. This was under the supervision of Professor Beate Kampmann and conducted at MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM. He spent six months with Prof. Eric Rubin at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2010-11. He trained at Cambridge and Oxford Universities and has a Masters of Education Degree from Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Lessons and impact for meningitis in the COVID-19 era

Chair and Moderator: Professor Adam Finn, University of Bristol

Adam Finn is Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Bristol. He obtained his medical degree at Oxford University, UK in 1983, trained in paediatrics in the UK, paediatric infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, USA and in paediatric immunology at the Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond St. Hospital, London, UK. He was a senior lecturer in Sheffield UK for 10 years before moving to Bristol in 2001.
Currently he chairs the WHO European Technical Advisory Group of Experts on Immunisation and is a member of the UK Dept Health Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation.

His research focusses on paediatric vaccines, how they work and, in particular, how universal immunisation programmes impact on transmission of infection at the population level.
Most recently, he took on the role of leading the Bristol COVID Emergency Research Group (UNCOVER) – a group of researchers united in their efforts to understand and combat the many health and societal challenges raised by COVID-19. Bristol UNCOVER includes clinicians, immunologists, virologists, synthetic biologists, aerosol scientists, epidemiologists and mathematical modellers and has links to behavioural and social scientists, ethicists and lawyers.

PANEL DISCUSSION - Will meningitis rebound as COVID restrictions end? What needs to happen next?

Panellists from around the world will take part in a discussion contrasting models predicting a prolonged herd protection effect from social distancing vs the immunity gap due to reduced immunisation and reduced natural acquisition/ boosting of immunity.

• Findings from the IRIS initiative, with a focus on Brazil, and commenting on the situation in Latin America - Professor Marco Safadi, Santa Casa de São Paulo School of Medical Sciences, Brazil
• African perspective on COVID impact - Professor Shabir Madhi, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
• Models of COVID impact on meningitis infections - Dr Caroline Trotter, University of Cambridge:
  • The relative predicted effect of social distancing on carriage vs lower vaccine coverage on IMD and IPD in the UK, and
  • The potential impact of MenAfriVac disruption on meningococcal A infection
• The immunity gap in childhood due to the COVID-19 pandemic - Professor Muhamed-Kheir Taha, Institut Pasteur, Paris

Audience voting at the beginning and end on whether meningitis infections will rebound as Covid restrictions end

Professor Marco Safadi
Santa Casa de São Paulo School of Medical Sciences, Brazil

Marco is the Head of Paediatrics and Associate Professor at Santa Casa de São Paulo School of Medical Sciences. An infectious diseases specialist, Marco is an active member of the Advisory Board on Immunization Practices in Brazil. His research is focused on the epidemiology and prevention of community-acquired infections.

Professor Shabir Madhi
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

Shabir A. Madhi, M.B.B.C.H. (Wits), FCPaeds(SA), Ph.D.
Shabir Madhi is the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Professor of Vaccinology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He also holds the position of Director of the South African Medical Research Council Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit (VIDA) and is co-Director of the African Leadership Initiative for Vaccinology Expertise (ALIVE). He has in the past led studies on pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and rotavirus vaccine in Africa, which informed WHO recommendations on the use of these vaccines in low and middle income settings. He has led studies on the clinical development of vaccines for pregnant women aimed at protection of mother-infant dyads. Recently he led the first two COVID-19 vaccine studies being undertaken in Africa, and has been involved in multiple epidemiological studies on Covid-19 in South Africa. He has co-authored more than 500 scientific manuscripts since 1997, mainly on vaccine preventable diseases.

Dr Caroline Trotter
University of Cambridge

Dr Caroline Trotter is an infectious disease epidemiologist with a particular interest in vaccine evaluation. She is based at the University of Cambridge and has an honorary position with Public Health England. Most of her research is on bacterial meningitis, and in particular meningococcal disease. She uses a variety of methods, including observational studies, mathematical modelling and cost-effectiveness analyses and enjoys addressing questions of direct relevance to vaccine and public health policy. Caroline is also the Director of the Cambridge-Africa Programme, a University wide initiative to connect researchers in Cambridge and Africa

Professor Muhamed-Kheir Taha
Institut Pasteur, Paris

Muhamed-Kheir Taha, MD, PhD, HDR is Professor at Institut Pasteur in Paris France, Invasive bacterial infection Unit,
Head of the Unit Invasive bacterial infections, the French National Reference Centre for Meningococci and Haemophilus influenzae,
and the WHO collaborating centre for meningitis, and is the current President of The European Meningococcal and Haemophilus
Disease Society (EMGM). Prof Taha’s research works focus on the molecular pathogenesis of Neisseria meningitidis and
Haemophilus influenzae as well as on the molecular epidemiology of meningococcal and H. influenzae infections.

Using COVID vaccine technology to make faster, cheaper meningitis vaccines, and regulatory lessons from COVID

Professor Sir Andrew Pollard
University of Oxford

Professor Sir Andrew Pollard FMedSci
Professor of Paediatric Infection and Immunity
Professor Pollard is Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Oxford and an honorary consultant paediatrician at Oxford Children’s Hospital, where he led the paediatric infectious disease clinical service 2001-2021. He was Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Paediatrics 2012-2020 and Vice-Master of St Cross College, Oxford, 2017-2021, and remains a Fellow of the College. He received a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2021 for services to Public Health, especially in the pandemic.

Professor Pollard obtained his medical degree at St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, in 1989 and trained in Paediatrics at Birmingham Children’s Hospital specialising in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at St Mary’s Hospital, London, and at British Columbia Children’s Hospital, Vancouver, Canada. He obtained his PhD at St Mary’s Hospital in 1999 studying immunity to Neisseria meningitidis in children and proceeded to work on anti-bacterial innate immune responses in children in Canada before returning to his current position at the University of Oxford in 2001. He chaired the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) meningitis guidelines development group (2006-2010), the NICE topic expert group developing quality standards for management of meningitis and meningococcal septicaemia (2011-2013). He has been a member of the British Commission on Human Medicines' Clinical Trials, Biologicals and Vaccines expert advisory group since 2013.
His research includes the design, development and clinical evaluation of vaccines including those for typhoid, meningococcus, Haemophilus influenzae type b, pneumococcus, plague, pertussis, influenza, rabies, coronavirus and Ebola, and leads studies using a human challenge model of paratyphoid and typhoid. He runs surveillance for invasive bacterial diseases and studies the impact of pneumococcal vaccines in children in Nepal and leads a project on burden and transmission of typhoid in Nepal, Bangladesh and Malawi, and co-leads typhoid vaccine impact studies at these sites. He was the chief investigator for the clinical trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in 2020 in 24,000 participants in UK, South Africa and Brazil, which led to authorisation of the vaccine for use in more than 170 countries with over 550million doses distributed by July 2021. He has supervised 37 PhD students and his publications includes over 500 manuscripts and books on various topics in paediatrics and infectious diseases. He chairs the UK Department of Health and Social Care’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, is a member of WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts, and chaired the European Medicines Agency scientific advisory group on vaccines (2012–2020). He previously chaired the scientific panel of the Spencer Dayman Meningitis Laboratories Charitable Trust (2002-2006) and was a member of the scientific committee of the Meningitis Research Foundation (2009-2014) and is currently chair of trustees of the Knoop Trust and a trustee of the Jenner Vaccine Foundation. He received the “Science Honor and Truth Award” of the Instituto de Patologia en la Altura in La Paz, Bolivia in 2002, the Bill Marshall Award of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Disease (ESPID) in 2013, the ESPID Distinguished Award for Education and Communication in 2015 and the Rosén von Rosenstein medal in 2019 awarded by the Swedish Paediatric Society and the Swedish Society of Medicine. He was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2016 and is an NIHR Senior Investigator. He received the Oxford University Vice Chancellor’s Innovation Award in 2020 for his work on typhoid vaccines.
He made the first British ascent of Jaonli (6632m) in 1988 and Chamlang in 1991 (7309m) and was the Deputy leader of the successful 1994 British Medical Everest Expedition.

Improving data for meningitis: recognition, diagnosis and surveillance - closing the ascertainment gap between people affected and laboratory surveillance

Chair: Dr Anne von Gottberg, NICD, Johannesburg

Anne von Gottberg is currently the laboratory lead for the Centre for Respiratory Diseases and Meningitis at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, Johannesburg, South Africa and Associate Professor within the School of Pathology, Faculty of the Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; and Honorary Professor, Department of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, Cape Town. She leads a laboratory team responsible for reference diagnostics for respiratory and meningeal pathogens nationally and regionally. The laboratory is the regional reference laboratory for the World Health Organization (WHO) Vaccine-preventable Invasive Bacterial Diseases (VP-IBD) Coordinated Global Surveillance Network for the southern African region; a National Influenza Centre (NIC); and a WHO RSV and SARS-CoV-2 Reference Laboratory. Her main interests include surveillance for meningitis and respiratory pathogens, assessing vaccine effectiveness where relevant. She has authored or co-authored more than 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals. In addition, she supervises a number of Masters and PhD students. Dr von Gottberg obtained her MBBCh and PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand, and trained for her specialisation in clinical microbiology (FC Path[SA] MICRO) at the National Health Laboratory Service (former South African Institute for Medical Research) and at the University of the Witwatersrand.

Advocacy and awareness raising activity and the WHO Defeating Meningitis by 2030 Roadmap

Rob Dawson
Meningitis Research Foundation

Rob Dawson is a strategic communications director with experience in health and science across industry, public sector and not-for-profits.

He is former Director of Communications, Advocacy and Support at Meningitis Research Foundation, Chair of the STEM PR Association, Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) member and has also guest-lectured at Cambridge and Kent Universities.

He has led teams to win several awards for meningitis advocacy and communications activities, including Third Sector Award 2018 Communications Campaign of the Year, for Meningitis Research Foundation’s adolescent vaccine campaign, and Communique Charitable Campaign of the Year 2021, for supporting the development of the Global Roadmap to Defeat Meningitis.

Challenges and possible solutions to improving laboratory confirmation of bacterial meningitis

Dr André Bita
WHO

Dr Andre Arsene Bita Fouda is WHO Regional meningitis control officer, in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. In this role, Dr Bita’s responsibilities include: providing technical support and guidance to African Countries on Meningococcal vaccines for prevention and reactive vaccination mass campaigns and introduction into routine immunization; monitoring progress on introduction of MenAfriVac in the African meningitis belt countries; providing technical support and guidance to African countries on surveillance, data management and care of patents with sequelae, case management, preparation and response to meningitis epidemics; and developing regional guidelines on meningitis control. With regards to COVID-19, Dr Bita is a member of the Programme, Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting cell in WHO regional office. Prior to this, he was a WHO Consultant on the Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP) 2014-2017; Regional meningitis control officer (2018-2021). Dr Bita has authored 63 publications in 17 peer review journals and co-authored four guidelines: Immunization, surveillance and response to outbreaks (meningitis, measles, cholera, COVID-19); HIV/AIDS; health economics; occupational Medicine.

Developing and deploying RDTs for the main meningitis pathogens: where we are now and what’s happening next

Dr Xin Wang
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention

Dr. Xin Wang earned her PhD from Emory University Department of Microbiology and Immunology. Currently, Dr. Wang is the chief of Bacterial Meningitis Laboratory within Meningitis and Vaccine Preventable Diseases Branch at CDC and the Director of WHO Collaborating Center for Meningitis. In this role, Dr. Wang is responsible for establishing team goals and priorities, developing strategic plans to support public health priorities, leading studies and activities to bridge knowledge gaps, and providing technical expertise to support meningitis surveillance and outbreak response domestically and internationally. Over the course of more than 14 years at CDC, Dr. Wang has led a number of projects to advance the understanding of meningococcal disease/carriage, improve laboratory and informatics methods for disease surveillance, monitor genomic epidemiology and antibiotic resistance trends, and evaluate vaccine antigens for strain coverage. She has authored or co-authored more than 120 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals. Additionally, Dr. Wang has led laboratory building capacities in a number of countries in Africa and Asia, including providing national and regional trainings, developing standardized training programs, as well as serving on workgroups and steering committees to provide technical consultation. She has won more than 30 CDC and NCIRD honor awards in recognition of her leadership and scientific contributions.

Distinguishing bacterial infections using a host signature: PERFORM- DIAMONDS studies

Dr Jethro Herberg
Imperial College London

Dr Jethro Herberg is a Reader in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London, and honorary consultant at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and the Royal Brompton Hospital. After studying Biochemistry at Oxford and a human immunogenetics PhD at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, he trained in medicine at University College London. He has worked at Imperial College since 2008.

His research focuses on the discovery and clinical translation of host diagnostic biomarkers for children with infectious and inflammatory conditions. Current projects include DIAMONDS (www.diamonds2020.eu), a large international study of febrile children that is developing and piloting the use of novel technology platforms that use host transcript-based tests for multi-class diagnosis of infectious and inflammatory conditions. His specialist clinical interests include the investigation of genetic predisposition in children with severe infection, and Kawasaki disease.

Discriminatory host transcripts in the blood of adults with bacterial meningitis: TRIM study

Dr Mike Griffiths
University of Liverpool

I am a Reader and Paediatric Neurology consultant in the Department of Clinical Infection, Microbiology and Immunology at the Institute of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences at the University of Liverpool and Alder Hey Children’s NHS Trust.

My team's main aim is to improve diagnosis, treatment and management of infection, with a focus on brain infections, such as meningitis, encephalitis and neurosurgical-infection.
My research Interests lie on the host responses to severe infection, particularly neurological insults. We use a variety of approaches, including transcriptomic and proteomic approaches to explore these responses.
I am PI for the several UK and international studies, including TRIM (TRanscripts Identifying Meningitis) and DIME (Diagnostic Improvement for Meningo-encephalitis) studies.

Mike is also diagnostic lead, for several studies improving management of brain infections in the UK and overseas. Studies include sites across UK, Denmark, Netherlands, Indonesia, Malawi, India and Brazil.
I work with various 3rd sector organisations, including NICE, WHO, PATH and Industry, as well as being Chair of Education, Quality and Standards for the British Paediatric Neurology Association (BPNA) in UK and Ireland.
Funding sources for the work include the MRC, Newton fund, Wellcome Trust, EU Horizon 2020 and NIHR. I previously trained in Oxford, Kenya (Kilifi) and Stanford (USA) as well as multiple UK hospitals, and I maintain collaborations with these Institutes.

Publications include the Lancet, Lancet Infectious Diseases, Lancet Neurology and Lancet Child and Adolescent Health.

Genomics: the frontier of learning

Chair: Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust/LSHTM

Ifedayo M. O Adetifa MBBS, FWACP (Paed), MSc PhD, is the 2nd Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). He is a paediatrician and epidemiologist, with almost two decades of working experience in general paediatrics, paediatrics infectious diseases and infectious disease epidemiology. His work to date has covered the areas of paediatrics HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis epidemiology and the epidemiology of vaccine-preventable diseases. In the last seven years, he has focused on vaccine epidemiology research with an overarching aim of generating evidence for vaccine policy in Africa through vaccine impact studies and seroepidemiology. He has also been involved in the COVID-19 response through his activities as a member of the Kenya SARS-CoV-2 Serology Consortium. As part of his activities in the vaccine policy arena, he is a member of the World Health Organisation, Africa Region’s (WHO-AFRO) Regional Immunisation Technical Advisory Group, the WHO Respiratory Syncytial Virus Technical Advisory Group, and the Programme Advisory Group for the Malaria Vaccine Implementation Programme. Members of the Kenya SARS-CoV-2 Serology Consortium

Until his current appointment as the Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, he was an Associate Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), United Kingdom, and Clinical Epidemiologist at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)- Wellcome Trust Research Programme (KWTRP) in Kilifi, Kenya from 2014 to date. And prior to this he was a Clinical Epidemiologist at the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia.

Dr Ifedayo Adetifa received his undergraduate medical qualification from the University of Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria, studied for his Masters in Epidemiology at the London Shool of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and received his PhD also in Epidemiology from the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He completed clinical specialty training at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, Lagos for which he was awarded the Fellowship of the West African College of Physicians in Paediatrics.

Pneumococcal genomics, vaccines and AMR

Dr William Hanage
Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

Dr. Bill Hanage is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology in the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. His research and teaching focus on the epidemiology of infectious disease and the evolution of infectious agents. He received his PhD from Imperial College London. He joined the faculty at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in 2010. He has made seminal contributions to the study of diverse pathogens, both bacteria and viruses, and has a special interest in evolution in response to interventions such as vaccination or antimicrobials, using laboratory based and computational methods. His awards include the Fleming Prize from the Microbiology Society and a young investigator award from the American Society for Microbiology. He has published more than scientific 160 articles and book chapters and is a regular contributor to popular media aiming to improve public understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Hypervirulence and Group B Streptococcal Infection

Dr Odile Harrison
University of Oxford

Odile Harrison PhD, has been studying infectious diseases and the evolution of bacterial pathogens for over 10 years. After graduating with a Microbiology degree from University College London, she pursued a Ph.D. in Medical Microbiology at Imperial College London, where in vivo gene expression of the human bacterial pathogen Neisseria meningitidis was investigated. After this, she obtained a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship and worked at Sanofi Pasteur in Lyon, France where she researched the diversity of iron acquisition proteins in Neisseria species. At the University of Oxford, Odile has pursued her interest in the population biology of Neisseria including the analysis of whole-genome sequence (WGS) data. More recently, her work has expanded to the analysis of WGS data from other encapsulated bacteria and sexually-transmitted bacterial infections. Odile is an associate editor of the Journal of Infection and is a fellow of the Higher Education academy

How this will be made accessible through the Global Meningitis Genome Partnership

Professor Robert Heyderman
University College London

Rob Heyderman is a clinician scientist with skills and experience that bridge clinical practice, disease prevention and the fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of infectious disease. He directed the highly successful Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Programme (MLW) for over 8 years, transforming the Programme into a centre of excellence led by Malawian & international scientists, pursuing internationally-leading science, research training & improving the health of people in sub-Saharan Africa. At UCL, he has established a Mucosal Pathogens Research Group which focuses on the microbial and immunological basis of severe infection caused by bacterial and viral mucosal pathogens in the UK and Africa, and their prevention through vaccination. His population-based studies of vaccine-preventable disease in Africa have led to national vaccine implementation, vaccine evaluation and large-scale studies of modified vaccine schedules. Working with WHO AFRO, he is leading the evaluation of COVID19 vaccines in vulnerable adults. He is a member of several guideline committees for the diagnosis & management of meningitis and meningogoccal sepsis. He is a member of the task force for WHO Road Map for Defeating Meningitis. He chairs the Global Meningitis Genome Partnership.

Poster Presentations - three parallel sessions

Track 1: Prevention – Chair: Professor Paul Heath, St George’s University of London

Identification of Neisseria meningitidis specific patient derived antibodies using reverse vaccinology 2.0 - Camilla Gladstone, Imperial College London

Changes in the epidemiology of invasive meningococcal diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany- Dr Manuel Krone, Wuerzburg University Hospital and German National Reference Laboratory for Neisseria meningitidis and Haemophilus influenzae

Natural Immunity in the African Meningitis Belt to Neisseria meningitidis serogroup X: A Seroprevalence Study – Sara Katz, UK Health Security Agency

Neisseria lactamica induces anti-Neisseria meningitidis B cell responses- Dr Adam Dale, University of Southampton

Immunogenicity of a Single 4CMenB Vaccine Booster in Adolescents 11 Years After Childhood Immunisation - Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, University of Oxford

Camilla Gladstone
Imperial College London

Millie is a final year PhD student at Imperial College London in the Department of Infectious Disease. She graduated from Exeter University in 2016 with a BSc in Biological Sciences (Microbiology and Infectious Disease) before completing an MSc in Medical Microbiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2017. Her PhD incorporates immunology, molecular biology and microbiology to improve vaccines against meningococcal meningitis.
Millie uses a technique called Reverse Vaccinology 2.0 to find meningococcal vaccine antigens. This technique clones antibodies against meningococci from patient blood samples, before identifying the target antigen on the bacteria. This target could be included in a future vaccine against meningococci, preventing meningococcal infections.
Outside of work Millie enjoys sports, including playing netball for Imperial, and is a keen amateur baker!

Dr Manuel Krone
Wuerzburg University Hospital and German National Reference Laboratory for Neisseria meningitidis and Haemophilus influenzae

Dr Manuel Krone is Deputy Head of the Infection Control and Antimicrobial Stewardship Unit at Wuerzburg University Hospital, Germany, and works at the German National Reference Laboratory for Meningococci and Haemophilus Influenzae.
Prior to this, he trained in clinical microbiology at the University of Wuerzburg, Germany. Dr. Krone's principal areas of research relate to the epidemiology and prevention of airborne diseases with focus on Neisseria meningitidis, Haemophilus influenzae and SARS-CoV-2.
He is currently the chief investigator of the 'CoVacSer' study to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 infections and immunizations on health-related quality of life and fitness for work in healthcare workers. Other projects include recurring invasive meningococcal disease and the impact of Haemophilus influenzae colonization on pregnancy outcome.

Sara Katz
UK Health Security Agency

Sara Katz is a Healthcare Scientist at the Vaccine Evaluation Unit at the UK Health Security Agency (formerly Public Health England), Manchester, UK, where she and her team evaluate serological responses to meningococcal vaccines.
She completed a BSc in Healthcare Science at the University of Central Lancashire and qualified as a HCPC registered biomedical scientist in 2017. She has recently finished study on a MRes in Healthcare Sciences at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her masters project focused on seroprevalence of N. meningitidis serogroup X within the African meningitis belt, and validation of a serogroup X Serum Bactericidal Antibody assay for use in clinical trials.

Dr Adam Dale
University of Southampton

Adam Dale is a NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer in Infectious Diseases at the University of Southampton, and honorary registrar in Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology at University Hospital Southampton. He works in the research group of Professor Robert Read in close collaboration with the NIHR Clinical Research Facility at University Hospital Southampton and the Southampton NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. During his Wellcome Trust-funded PhD Research Training Fellowship, Adam studied the adaptive cellular immune responses generated following pharyngeal colonisation with wild-type and genetically modified strains of Neisseria lactamica. Adam is currently utilising N. lactamica and Bordetella pertussis controlled human infection models to better understand the factors affecting bacterial colonisation and the interaction of colonising bacteria with the human immune system.

Professor Sir Andrew Pollard
University of Oxford

Professor Sir Andrew Pollard FMedSci
Professor of Paediatric Infection and Immunity
Professor Pollard is Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Oxford and an honorary consultant paediatrician at Oxford Children’s Hospital, where he led the paediatric infectious disease clinical service 2001-2021. He was Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Paediatrics 2012-2020 and Vice-Master of St Cross College, Oxford, 2017-2021, and remains a Fellow of the College. He received a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2021 for services to Public Health, especially in the pandemic.

Professor Pollard obtained his medical degree at St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, in 1989 and trained in Paediatrics at Birmingham Children’s Hospital specialising in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at St Mary’s Hospital, London, and at British Columbia Children’s Hospital, Vancouver, Canada. He obtained his PhD at St Mary’s Hospital in 1999 studying immunity to Neisseria meningitidis in children and proceeded to work on anti-bacterial innate immune responses in children in Canada before returning to his current position at the University of Oxford in 2001. He chaired the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) meningitis guidelines development group (2006-2010), the NICE topic expert group developing quality standards for management of meningitis and meningococcal septicaemia (2011-2013). He has been a member of the British Commission on Human Medicines' Clinical Trials, Biologicals and Vaccines expert advisory group since 2013.
His research includes the design, development and clinical evaluation of vaccines including those for typhoid, meningococcus, Haemophilus influenzae type b, pneumococcus, plague, pertussis, influenza, rabies, coronavirus and Ebola, and leads studies using a human challenge model of paratyphoid and typhoid. He runs surveillance for invasive bacterial diseases and studies the impact of pneumococcal vaccines in children in Nepal and leads a project on burden and transmission of typhoid in Nepal, Bangladesh and Malawi, and co-leads typhoid vaccine impact studies at these sites. He was the chief investigator for the clinical trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in 2020 in 24,000 participants in UK, South Africa and Brazil, which led to authorisation of the vaccine for use in more than 170 countries with over 550million doses distributed by July 2021. He has supervised 37 PhD students and his publications includes over 500 manuscripts and books on various topics in paediatrics and infectious diseases. He chairs the UK Department of Health and Social Care’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, is a member of WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts, and chaired the European Medicines Agency scientific advisory group on vaccines (2012–2020). He previously chaired the scientific panel of the Spencer Dayman Meningitis Laboratories Charitable Trust (2002-2006) and was a member of the scientific committee of the Meningitis Research Foundation (2009-2014) and is currently chair of trustees of the Knoop Trust and a trustee of the Jenner Vaccine Foundation. He received the “Science Honor and Truth Award” of the Instituto de Patologia en la Altura in La Paz, Bolivia in 2002, the Bill Marshall Award of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Disease (ESPID) in 2013, the ESPID Distinguished Award for Education and Communication in 2015 and the Rosén von Rosenstein medal in 2019 awarded by the Swedish Paediatric Society and the Swedish Society of Medicine. He was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2016 and is an NIHR Senior Investigator. He received the Oxford University Vice Chancellor’s Innovation Award in 2020 for his work on typhoid vaccines.
He made the first British ascent of Jaonli (6632m) in 1988 and Chamlang in 1991 (7309m) and was the Deputy leader of the successful 1994 British Medical Everest Expedition.

Track 2: Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment – Chair: Dr Anne von Gottberg, NICD, Johannesburg

Transcriptome analysis of CSF from meningitis patients identifies a novel Streptococcus pneumoniae operon that is essential for establishing brain infection – Dr Emma Wall, UCL

Modelling meningococcal A conjugate vaccine coverage in the meningitis belt from 2010 to 2019 - Rose Bender, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington

Phase 3 Trial of Safety, Tolerability and Immunogenicity of V114, 15-Valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine, Compared with 13-Valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine in Adults 50 Years of Age and Older (PNEU-AGE) – Andrew Tran, Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD)

In silico evaluation of current PCR diagnostic targets for the molecular detection of bacterial meningitis – Dr Kanny Diallo, Centre Suisse de Recherche Scientifique de Cote d’Ivoire, Abidjan

Meningococcal serogroup C (MenC) immune response of a novel tetanus toxoid conjugate quadrivalent meningococcal vaccine (MenACYW-TT) compared to a quadrivalent (MCV4-TT) or monovalent (MenC-TT) meningococcal vaccine in healthy meningococcal vaccine-naïve toddlers - Professor Markus Knuf, Children’s hospital, HSK, Dr. Horst Schmidt Klinik, Wiesbaden, Germany

Dr Emma Wall
UCL

Emma is currently a senior clinical research fellow at the Francis Crick Institute and UCLH Biomedical Research Centre, she is an honorary consultant in Infectious Diseases at UCLH. She graduated from the University of Bristol and undertook higher specialist training in infection and internal medicine in North West London. Emma did her PhD at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme in Malawi, studying clinical management and epidemiology of bacterial meningitis in Malawian adults. Her primary research interest is invasive infection in HIV infected adults in low and middle income settings, with a particular focus on improving clinical outcomes from infections caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae. More recently she has focussed on evaluation of Covid-19 vaccine responses in healthy adults.

Rose Bender
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington

Rose Bender, B.S., is a Post-Bachelor Fellow at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). She works on the Global Burden of Disease Study as a disease modeler for meningitis and other select infectious diseases. She is also studying towards her Masters in Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, IHME’s home institution, with expected graduation in spring 2022. Her Masters capstone project presented at this conference, advised by Dr. Hmwe Kyu and Dr. Jonathan Mosser, models vaccination coverage for MenAfriVac in the countries of the meningitis belt.

Andrew Tran
Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD)

Mr Andrew Tran is a Pharmacist and Pneumococcal Vaccine Medical Advisor in the UK subsidiary of the pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD). At the MRF Conference he will be presenting data for MSD’s pipeline pneumococcal conjugate vaccine with permission and on behalf of the authors of each poster. MSD has a long legacy in vaccines and recently efforts in the UK have been focussed towards ensuring improved access for routine immunisation, particularly those most at-risk of vaccine-preventable diseases by working with all stakeholders from Government to charities and patient organisations.

Dr Kanny Diallo
Centre Suisse de Recherche Scientifique de Cote d’Ivoire, Abidjan

Kanny Diallo, Centre Suisse de Recherche Scientifique (CSRS), Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire
I obtained my BSc. and MSc. in biochemistry at McGill University (Montreal, Canada). I am a former Wellcome Trust Training Fellow which I used to pursue my DPhil at the University of Oxford where I studied the ecology and molecular epidemiology of Neisseria species in the African Meningitis Belt.

I worked at the Centre for Vaccine Development in Mali for 5 years and was a post doctoral research fellow for 1.5 year at the bacteriology department of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, University of Ghana, where I worked on an oropharyngeal microbiome pilot study. I was awarded a CRICK African Network Fellowship and moved to CSRS as an Associated Post-Doctoral Fellow to continue my research on the link between the oropharyngeal microbiome and invasive bacterial diseases with the overall goal being to understand the environmental and genetic factors that influence the onset of bacterial meningitis to better predict and eventually prevent epidemics.
I also have a particular interest in the development of molecular diagnosis tools adapted to our African setting and capable of improving our infectious diseases surveillance systems.
I have recently accepted a part-time administrative position as head of the capacity building and resource mobilisation unit at CSRS. The mandate of the unit is to provide support to researchers in their effort to secure research grants.

Professor Markus Knuf
Children’s hospital, HSK, Dr. Horst Schmidt Klinik, Wiesbaden, Germany

Dr Markus Knuf is currently Head of the Children’s Hospital in Worms, germany and also a Professor for Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Pediatric Intensive Care at the Department of Pediatrics at the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, in Germany. He holds subspecialities in neonatalogy, pediatric intensive care, neuropaediatrics and EEG. His interest in pediatric immunology, infectious diseases and vaccination, and neonatal neurology covers nearly 30 years, and his national and international original publications and presentations include specific topics in paediatric immunology, infectious diseases, and vaccination. Prof Dr Knuf has been actively involved in many different studies, the results of which have been published and were presented at a large number of national and international scientific meetings. He is a member of various scientific boards, of the German Society for Paediatrics, of the German Society for Paediatric Immunology, and board member of the German Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases.

Track 3: Surveillance, Support and Advocacy - Chair: Professor Beate Kampmann, LSHTM

Assessing 4CMenB strain coverage of invasive meningococcal strains in an English and Welsh vaccine-eligible cohort using non-culture draft genome sequences- Dr Stephen Clark, UK Health Security Agency

Changes in Pneumococcal Meningitis Incidence Following Introduction of PCV10 and PCV13: Results from the Global PSERENADE Project - Yangyupei Yang, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Rapid Transmission of a Hyper-Virulent Meningococcal Clone Due to High Effective Contact Numbers and Super Spreaders- Jonathan Holmes, University of Leicester

Sequelae at hospital discharge in 49 children with invasive meningococcal disease, Chile, 2009-2019 – Dr Rodolfo Villena, University of Chile

MEVacP : a public engagement website about meningitis and vaccine policy – Dr Odile Harrison, University of Oxford

Dr Stephen Clark
UK Health Security Agency

Dr Stephen Clark is a Senior Scientist at the UK Health Security Agency based at the Meningococcal Reference Unit (MRU) in Manchester, UK. Stephen received his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences in 2008. In 2009, he joined the UKHSA Vaccine Evaluation Unit as part of the SBA team that generated immunogenicity data supporting the licensure of 4CMenB (Bexsero®).
In 2012, Stephen began a Pfizer-sponsored PhD programme focussed on looking at new ways of improving strain coverage estimates of protein-based meningococcal vaccines. This included the development of a PCR-sequencing assay to type Factor H-Binding Protein (fHbp) directly from clinical specimens and a pilot study looking at the use of the Agilent SureSelect system for whole genome sequencing of meningococcal DNA directly from clinical specimens. Stephen also oversaw the transfer of the Pfizer-developed Meningococcal Antigen Surface Expression (MEASURE) assay into the MRU. He received his PhD in 2018.
Stephen transferred into the MRU in 2017, and now oversees meningococcal typing from clinical specimens, which is important for comprehensive national meningococcal surveillance as well as informing public health responses to outbreaks. He is involved in coordinating screening of swabs for the national ‘Be on the Team’ carriage study, which aims to assess the impact of MenB vaccines on meningococcal carriage. Also, a large part of his work involves running the MEASURE assay, which is used to assess fHbp surface expression among strains of interest. More recently, he has been involved in a project to validate the use of dried blood and CSF spots for diagnosis of meningococcal disease as well as strain characterisation in lower-resource settings.

Yangyupei Yang
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Yangyupei (Jade) is a Research Analyst in the International Vaccine Access Center, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She works on several projects, including the Pneumococcal Serotype Replacement and Distribution Estimation (PSERENADE) Project, a global analysis of the impact of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines on invasive pneumococcal disease in all ages, including indirect effects in adults. Jade received her MHS in Infectious Disease Epidemiology with certificates in Vaccine Science and Policy, and Clinical Trial from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and her BS in Public Health and General Biology from the University of Washington.

Her research interests include using a variety of epidemiology methods, mathematical modeling, and cost-effectiveness analyses to address research questions related to vaccine, infectious disease surveillance, and public health policy.

Jonathan Holmes
University of Leicester

My name is Jonathan Holmes, I am currently studying for a PhD in the department of genes and genome biology at the University of Leicester in Professor Christopher Bayliss’s research group which focuses on the role of hypermutable DNA sequences in Neisseria meningitidis and Campylobacter jejuni. My research interests predominantly lay in the role of hypermutable tracts present in phase variable loci and how these switching events aid bacterial survivability through direct experimentation and computation modelling. My area of experience in bioinformatics and computer scripting also allows me to branch into areas of epidemiology and next generation sequencing projects.
I was born in Oxford in 1995 and lived briefly in Ontario Canada for several years before moving back to the UK to a village just outside of Northampton. I conducted my undergraduate degree at Nottingham Trent university in Microbiology and Biochemistry completed my dissertation in cytochrome P450 enzyme kinetics under Dr Aldo Gutierrez. Following this I decided to expand my field of knowledge and transitioned into Bioinformatics completing a master’s in molecular Genetics at the University of Leicester where I joined Professor Bayliss’s laboratory for my master’s project.
Concluding my master’s degree, I re-joined Professor Bayliss’s lab on a project aiming to test the efficacy of Meningococcal conjugate vaccines by studying the correlation of hypermutable tracts to gene expression. After a year in academic research, I was accepted onto PhD programme through the Midlands Integrated Bioscience Training Programme (MIBTP) where I have just completed my 2nd of 4 years.

Dr Rodolfo Villena
University of Chile

As a Pediatric Infectious disease specialist and professor from the university, I have been involved in the immune preventable diseases fields through the active participation in several scientific societies meetings and conferences, advisories boards for public health institutions in latinoamerican countries, scientific societies and vaccines manufacturers, academic/scientific published manuscripts, and also in the study of vaccines and immunizations in different scientific protocols from phase I to phase IV as subinvestigator and principal investigator.

Dr Odile Harrison
University of Oxford

Odile Harrison PhD, has been studying infectious diseases and the evolution of bacterial pathogens for over 10 years. After graduating with a Microbiology degree from University College London, she pursued a Ph.D. in Medical Microbiology at Imperial College London, where in vivo gene expression of the human bacterial pathogen Neisseria meningitidis was investigated. After this, she obtained a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship and worked at Sanofi Pasteur in Lyon, France where she researched the diversity of iron acquisition proteins in Neisseria species. At the University of Oxford, Odile has pursued her interest in the population biology of Neisseria including the analysis of whole-genome sequence (WGS) data. More recently, her work has expanded to the analysis of WGS data from other encapsulated bacteria and sexually-transmitted bacterial infections. Odile is an associate editor of the Journal of Infection and is a fellow of the Higher Education academy.