Completed Infection & Immunity Pregnancy, Children & Inherited Conditions

The epidemiology, genomics and longitudinal immune response of Shigella infections in Vietnamese children.

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Recipient organisation University of Oxford
Funding £1.6M
Period Jul 2013 — Dec 2018

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

In Vietnam, a drug-resistant strain of the dysentery bacterium *Shigella sonnei* is spreading rapidly through children, yet no vaccine exists and basic questions about who gets infected and how remain unanswered. Over three years, researchers will track more than 5,000 children hospitalised with dysentery in Ho Chi Minh City, and monitor a separate community cohort of 1,000 children for two years to measure age-specific infection rates. They will sequence the genomes of over 1,000 bacterial isolates to map the pathogen’s spread and evolution, and analyse blood samples to determine how many children have actually been exposed—revealing the true burden hidden behind hospital records. An antigen array will also be developed to test which bacterial proteins trigger a natural immune response, directly informing the design of future vaccines and diagnostics. This is applied infectious disease research with a clear public health goal: if successful, it will provide the epidemiological and immunological data needed to target vaccination campaigns and slow the spread of a pathogen that sickens thousands of children each year in a rapidly urbanising region.

View original technical description
Shigella sonnei is an emergent diarrhoeal pathogen in industrialising countries. Our data from a global S.sonnei collection suggest that this organism is undergoing clonal expansion in Vietnam, influenced by antimicrobial resistance. A lack of a vaccine and a limited understanding of the distribution, incidence and exposure of S.sonnei hinder our ability to control disease and transmission. This project will investigate the genomics, epidemiology, spatial distribution and immune response of S.so nnei infections in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). Over 3 years, >5,000 children from HCMC hospitalised with dysentery will be enrolled, providing a longitudinal collection of S.sonnei and metadata. Risk factors and age-specific incidence of S.sonnei will be assessed by performing active diarrhoeal surveillance for two years in a geographically defined community cohort of 1,000 children. The population structure of S.sonnei in HCMC will be defined by genome sequencing >1,000 isolates, providing a compr ehensive understanding of the genetic makeup and the temporal, spatial and phylogenetic relationships of S.sonnei in HCMC. Plasma collected through the hospital and cohort components of this project will be assayed to assess the age-specific seroincidence and the true S.sonnei burden. An antigen array will be developed to assess the natural immunogenicity of novel diagnostics and vaccine candidates.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Stephen Baker (EPMC Awardee)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

Genotyping epidemic Shigella sonnei
Investigating the emerging pathogen Shigella sonnei
CHIM - Shigella sonnei in Vietnamese adults - Development funds
Informing shigellosis treatment and management in resource-poor settings through pathogen genomics
PeRsistent Infection of Shigella in Macrophages (PRISM): Shedding light on the intra-phagocytic lifestyle of Shigella sonnei using human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived macrophages

Original classification

Sir Henry Dale Fellowship

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