Kenya may benefit from a new push to develop vaccines for 17 pathogens that regularly cause diseases in communities.
The World Health Organization, in a new study, named the pathogens as top priorities for new vaccine development.
The study is the first global effort to systematically prioritise endemic pathogens based on criteria that included regional disease burden, antimicrobial resistance risk and socioeconomic impact.
The study reconfirms longstanding priorities for vaccine research and development, including for HIV, malaria and tuberculosis – three diseases that collectively claim nearly 2.5 million lives each year.
The three are among the top killers in Kenya, according to the annual Economic Survey. WHO also identifies pathogens such as Group A streptococcus and Klebsiella pneumoniae as top disease control priorities in all regions, highlighting the urgency to develop new vaccines for pathogens increasingly resistant to antimicrobials.
“Too often global decisions on new vaccines have been solely driven by return on investment, rather than by the number of lives that could be saved in the most vulnerable communities,” said Dr Kate O’Brien, director of the immunisation, vaccines and biologicals department at WHO.
“This study uses broad regional expertise and data to assess vaccines that would not only significantly reduce diseases that greatly impact communities today but also reduce the medical costs that families and health systems face.”
WHO asked international and regional experts to identify factors that are most important to them when deciding which vaccines to introduce and use.
The analysis of the preferences, combined with regional data for each pathogen, resulted in top 10 priority pathogens for each WHO region.
The regional lists were then consolidated to form the global list, resulting in 17 priority endemic pathogens for which new vaccines need to be researched, developed and used.
This new WHO global priority list of endemic pathogens for vaccine R&D supports the Immunisation Agenda 2030’s goal of ensuring that everyone, in all regions, can benefit from vaccines that protect them from serious diseases.
The list provides an equitable and transparent evidence base to set regional and global agendas for new vaccine R&D and manufacturing and is intended to give academics, funders, manufacturers and countries a clear direction for where vaccine R&D could have the most impact.
This global prioritisation exercise
for endemic pathogens, complements the WHO R&D blueprint for
epidemics, which identified priority
pathogens that could cause future
epidemics or pandemics.