WHO Collaborating Centre highlights the power of modelling for infectious disease prevention and control

The MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London has been redesignated as WHO’s Collaborating Centre (CC) for Infectious Disease Modelling.

The Centre’s mission is to serve as an international resource and centre of excellence for research and training in epidemiological analysis and modelling of infectious diseases. Building on decades of collaboration with WHO, it undertakes applied collaborative work at global, regional and state levels to support response operations and policy planning against infectious disease threats. The CC will operate under refreshed terms of reference to meet the latest global challenges, following its last objectives set in April 2019.

Over the term of its status as a CC, the Centre will provide rapid analysis of urgent infectious disease problems, notably outbreaks and events of international concern, from parasitic diseases to emerging viral infections, and from chronic infections such as tuberculosis and hepatitis to acute severe respiratory and viral haemorrhagic diseases such as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and Ebola virus disease.

As well as offering technical assistance to WHO infectious disease programmes, it will contribute to WHO information products, coordinate expertise and build capacity in mathematical modelling. The Centre’s research among WHO Member States within the European Region has helped to define appropriate health and immunization standards and meet global emerging threats head-on to reduce or negate risks around the world.

“By collaborating with such specialized institutions like the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, we strive to strengthen surveillance and outbreak investigations,” explained Dr Nahoko Shindo, Unit Head, Emergency Preparedness, WHO.

“Without fit-for-purpose analysis, surveillance data are just numbers. Modelling results help us to understand the transmission dynamics and impact as well as to develop containment or mitigation strategies in the near term in evolving outbreak situations and over the longer term for eradication planning.”

Protection from future outbreaks

The Centre houses the Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium (VIMC) and produces estimates of vaccine impact across 12 pathogens in 112 countries. These estimates formed a substantial input to the Immunisation Agenda 2030 impact estimates, specifically Impact Goal indicator 1.1. VIMC collaborates closely with the Immunisation Analysis and Insights Unit within WHO, which serves as a data hub and analytics engine for immunization data and analytics.

“COVID-19 was not the first pandemic. We worked closely prior to and during the 2009 [H1N1] influenza pandemic with Imperial College London. Mathematical/statistical analysis and modelling are crucial and incredibly powerful tools to understand the unfolding situation and for testing the impacts of different interventions — for example, vaccination, specific antimicrobial agents and public health measures by simulation,” said Dr Shindo.

“As a long-standing WHO CC, we have collaborated with colleagues across the organization to support the generation of scientific evidence to guide policy development,” added Professor Azra Ghani, Director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Co-Director of the WHO CC and a member of the WHO Malaria Policy Advisory Group.

“Researchers across our WHO CC — ranging from PhD students to full professors — have found this engagement both stimulating and fruitful in ensuring that the research we undertake has a meaningful impact on health interventions worldwide.”

Global impact

Based in the WHO European Region, the Centre’s impact extends far beyond Europe. During multiple Ebola epidemics in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2018, 2020 and 2021 and in Guinea in 2021, members of the WHO CC provided real-time analytic support both remotely and through researchers deployed to WHO headquarters and in the field.

The Centre rapidly characterised transmissibility and severity levels and projected the potential scale of each epidemic from an early stage, giving regular updates enabling quantitative monitoring and evaluation of progress made in epidemic control. Its work was crucial for funding mobilization and logistical planning. It contributed to evidence considered by WHO in declaring the 2018–19 epidemic in DRC a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

The team at the Centre also served to help combat and control malaria through reducing vector risks and by supporting policy development and the uptake of novel vector-control tools to reduce malaria transmission. The work ranged from comparing the effectiveness of novel types of insecticide-treated net, to supporting national malaria programmes to help optimise their allocation of resources and adopt new tools.

In 2022, the Centre collaborated with WHO Europe to model the mpox (formerly monkey pox) global epidemic, working closely with four country-level teams to disentangle the drivers of the rise and fall in cases, estimate the potential for future outbreaks and quantify how successfully outbreaks can be mitigated through vaccinations. The modelling report produced was submitted to the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee and was considered part of the evidence base in the decision to end the mpox PHEIC.

“Without a doubt, the entire world is a safer place from epidemic and pandemic-prone infections due directly to the outcome of this collaboration between the MRC and WHO. We are proud to foster these types of relationships that can enable informed policy-making, and we are delighted that this relationship will continue to enable the Centre to continue in these critical efforts,” said Dr Richard Pebody, Programme Manager for Infectious Hazards, WHO Europe.