Active Infection & Immunity Pregnancy, Children & Inherited Conditions

Real-world Effectiveness of Oral Cholera Vaccines in Preventing Cholera in Mozambique - REOP

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Recipient organisation Instituto Nacional de Saúde Moçambique
Funding £1.6M
Period Feb 2025 — Feb 2029

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Mozambique’s Ministry of Health is running three mass cholera vaccination campaigns between 2024 and 2025, and researchers will track exactly how well the oral vaccine works in the field. Cholera kills thousands each year in lower-income countries, and climate-driven floods in Mozambique make outbreaks more frequent. Although safe oral cholera vaccines exist, national health officials have been slow to adopt them because there is little real-world data on how effective they are outside clinical trials. This study fills that gap by combining enhanced laboratory-confirmed surveillance at sentinel sites in three provinces with updated maps of cholera hotspots—areas where the disease is most likely to flare up. If the research succeeds, it will give policymakers in Mozambique and other cholera-prone countries hard numbers on vaccine performance. That evidence could accelerate targeted vaccine rollouts, saving lives during outbreaks and helping health systems allocate scarce doses where they are needed most. The work also strengthens community disease detection systems, which will remain useful for spotting other infectious threats long after the vaccination campaigns end.

View original technical description
Cholera, a poverty-related disease, is associated with significant mortality and morbidity in lower- and middle-income countries. Climate change events contribute to the occurrence of cholera outbreaks in countries like Mozambique. Safe and effective oral cholera vaccines (OCV) are available, however, scarcity of real-world vaccine effectiveness data hampered uptake of these vaccines by national stakeholders. Evidence on the value of OCVs and contemporaneous updating of cholera hotspots offer actionable data for policymakers in the targeted roll out of OCVs. In this proposal, two key objectives will be addressed: 1) update the already existing cholera hotspots maps defined 2017-2021; and 2) real-world effectiveness of OCVs in preventing cholera outbreaks. These objectives will be evaluated as part of three planned cholera vaccination campaigns by the Ministry of Health of Mozambique from 2024 to 2025. Enhanced cholera surveillance with laboratory confirmation will be employed at sentinel sites in three provinces. The existing integrated community engagement and disease detection systems will be strengthened. Outcomes of this study will have critical value in informing countries on the impact of OCV in preventing and controlling cholera outbreaks. Key words: Cholera hotspots, Oral cholera vaccine, Vaccine effectiveness.

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Researchers

Jose Langa (EPMC Awardee)

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