Successful Vaccinology Course in its 12th consecutive year to build capacity on continent
Africa has the largest burden of vaccine preventable diseases due to many reasons, among them, lack of human capacity such as vaccinologists. The University of Cape Town’s Vaccines for Africa Initiative (VACFA), based in the Faculty of Health Sciences’ Institute for Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM), has as its vision an Africa free of vaccine preventable diseases. This year, it again successfully hosted the annual African Vaccinology Course (AAVC) in Cape Town, as one of its programmes to build capacity on the continent.
The course, from 7-11th November 2016, was attended by 60 participants from 23 African countries, bringing the total participants trained on vaccinology in Africa through this programme to about 1000. Together, this large pool of African trained vaccinologists will contribute to strengthening the immunization programs on the continent.
Founder and Director of VACFA UCT Professor Gregory Hussey, explains that the aims of the course were to provide participants with essential expertise to support national immunisation programmes.
"We want to broaden the understanding of the challenges and opportunities in vaccinology at regional and global levels, and build sustainable research capacity for vaccine development and conducting high quality phase 1-lV vaccine trials in Africa. In addition, we want to foster communication and networking among African vaccinologists," says Hussey.
To this end, a diverse pool of 34 local and international faculty members presented at the course, including co-conveners Dr. Benjamin Kagina (Research officer, VACFA) and Dr. Rudzani Muloiwa (General Paediatrics, GSH and VACFA). Experts were from diverse backgrounds such as clinical medicine, operational sciences, epidemiology, immunology, vaccinology and media, from both academia and industry sectors. Highlights included networking session and, impressively, some new collaborative vaccines research activities were discussed.
"Participants engaged extensively at the talks presented with various questions and insights and I was most impressed by the exceptional quality of the participants as well as the speakers, " says Professor Hussey.
The 2016 AAVC course received funding from GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals (GSK), Pfizer and Sanofi Pasteur.