Measuring Impact and Effectiveness of Cholera Vaccines in Uvira, Democratic Republic of the Congo

We will leverage a robust cholera research platform in the city of Uvira, Democratic Republic of Congo to estimate the effectiveness and impact of a cholera vaccination program, providing critical inputs for local and global policy decisions.

Learning from cholera research in Uvira since 2016, we aim to improve vaccine research quality, by continuing systematic detection and recruitment of suspected cholera cases, establishing on-site PCR capacity and developing a vaccine register to ensure high-quality vaccination status ascertainment.

We will estimate the direct effectiveness of killed oral cholera vaccines through a community-matched case control study, enrolling case and controls up to eight years after the initial vaccination campaigns in Uvira in 2020 and up to three years after the anticipated 2024 campaign. We expect to generate estimates by age group, number of doses, and previous vaccination/disease history.

We will conduct two population-based surveys in Uvira to characterise population-level vaccine coverage and water, sanitation and hygiene conditions and will systematically collect data on water availability through the central piped water system.

Using these data and the epidemiologic curve, we will build statistical and computational models to estimate the overall impact of the vaccination campaign on incidence and mortality in the community.