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HomeResearchResearch impactDevelopment and roll-out of Typhoid Vi-conjugate vaccine (TCV)

Development and roll-out of Typhoid Vi-conjugate vaccine (TCV)

EU funding has supported University of Oxford led programmes to create and validate vaccines for some of the most prevalent and deadly diseases affecting low- and middle-income countries.

Swabbing for injectionSwabbing for injection
Typhoid fever causes over 100,000 deaths annually worldwide; while clean water and sanitation could control the disease, infrastructure improvements required to do this cannot be achieved rapidly. Vaccination offered a route to control the disease, but lack of licensed vaccines suitable for administration to children younger than five years had stalled progress. 

Researchers at the University of Oxford, led by Professor Andrew Pollard, undertook key research to address this challenge; they developed a human typhoid challenge model, results from which accelerated the approval of the first commercially available typhoid Vi-conjugate vaccine (TCV) and led to the WHO global recommendation on the use of this TCV for all children from 9 months to 15 years of age in areas with high typhoid transmission. 

This catalysed release of $85m funding by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) to enable low-income countries to purchase and introduce the vaccine, leading to mass vaccination programmes in Pakistan and Zimbabwe. Funding for this work has included multiple grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, an award from the Wellcome Trust, and a component of the collaborative European grant ‘Advanced Immunization Technologies’ (ADITEC), funded under FP7, the predecessor to Horizon.

50 million children have been vaccinated against typhoid in the past two years based on this research programme.

Read more: REF 2021 Impact case study : Typhoid Vaccine introduction improves childhood health and disease control