The Jameel Institute uses data analytics to combat disease threats worldwide and its core research themes are: outbreak response, responding to health emergencies, strengthening health systems, and building partnerships and capacity. Since the Institute first launched in October 2019, the team has been supporting national and international efforts to help model and advise governments and policymakers on the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now in its third year, the Institute continues to provide real-time modelling to inform responses to new waves of COVID-19 around the world, but attention has also turned to other outbreaks, such as Monkeypox, Ebola and cholera and other endemic diseases such as Tuberculosis (TB). These are all areas where the team has been able to support multiple in-country stakeholders, as well as work with WHO and other multilateral organisations.
The Institute's full annual report can be reviewed at the following link.
“As we enter the endemic phase of SARS-CoV-2 and life in the UK returns to some form of normality, the Jameel Institute has pivoted its attention to focus on research priorities beyond the pandemic. This has been an exciting year as we have delivered some activities we had to pause due to COVID-19. These include public engagement events, convening experts from multiple disciplines across Imperial College London to discuss collaboration opportunities, and finalising our medium-long term strategy.”
Professor Neil Ferguson (Director, Jameel Institute)
This short video provides an overview from the researchers and principal investigators at the Jameel Institute about our research, including our work during the COVID-19 pandemic and our vision for the future.
COVID-19 - Where are we now
Late last year, the emergence of the Omicron variant was a Variant of Concern (VOC) and we continued to see waves of sub-variants of Omicron in the UK and around the world. The Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team released three reports in quick succession on the impact of Omicron, the value of booster vaccines and hospitalisation risk. Since January 2020, the team have published 51 reports. These reports and additional analyses fed into the UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies and policymaking in WHO and other countries. Our work in report 50 evaluating the severity of Omicron then later fed into a collaborative analysis of this issue with UKHSA, later published in the Lancet.
All the reports that have been produced by the Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team can be reviewed here.
The Real-Time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) studies began in May 2020 and provided valuable information to the UK government on current infection rates across the whole population and the prevalence of antibodies. This information informed critical national policy decisions in England. By the end of the REACT project, over 2.5 million swabs in total were tested. A highlight of Professor Helen Ward’s work on REACT in the last few months was the publication of a Nature Communications paper characterising population antibody responses to vaccination. She has also worked on validating the use of mass self-testing for antibodies in the community, including the development of a machine learning tool to support auditing of home-based self-testing.
Research overview
To follow are highlights of some of the work that has been undertaken this year within our core themes of: outbreak response, responding to health emergencies, strengthening health systems, and building partnerships and capacity.
Outbreak response
Outside of work on COVID-19, the team has continued to support policymakers on new infectious diseases. In May 2022, a number of high-income countries saw outbreaks of Monkeypox, and the team has been working closely with UKHSA to understand the epidemiology of the outbreak in the UK and to model potential mitigation and intervention measures.
Responding to health emergencies
Air quality and pollution remains a huge health emergency in several low-to-middle income countries. Professor Majid Ezzati and team conducted a systematic review of studies measuring personal fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) exposure in low- and high-income countries. PM 2.5 is the air pollutant that poses the greatest risk to health globally, affecting more people than other air pollutants. Chronic exposure to PM 2.5 considerably increases the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases in particular. The review, published a paper in Science of the Total Environment, found that PM 2.5 exposure studies have increased since 2015. Inequalities in the magnitude of exposure were identified by the countries income status and recommendations to advance personal exposure research were discussed.
Strengthening health systems
Professor Nimalan Arinaminpathy and collaborators have been looking at the question of rapid vaccine development. COVID-19 has demonstrated the ability to fund and expedite vaccines for global pandemics. Influenza presents an important case study as it is one of the few infections that causes substantial public health burden in its endemic form while also having proven pandemic potential. In a paper published in Science, they offered the first step in bringing together the value proposition of future influenza vaccines by considering two key characteristics: the breadth of protection that vaccines offer and the duration for which protection remains effective. They also explored the current policy environment for vaccine development and make recommendations such as the need for a global market with regional production capacity to meet regional public health requirements.
Building capacity and partnerships
The Jameel Institute's collaboration with WHO allowed the health economics team the opportunity to adapt our DAEDALUS model for different country contexts. The team have provided support to policymakers in Mexico and Sri Lanka. Projections for the Delta wave of COVID-19 in Sri Lanka directly impacted policy decisions and led to the country rolling out a longer lockdown to prevent high hospitalisation rates and high mortality within the population. In addition, the DAEDALUS team have also strengthened their partnership with the Global Centre for Development and co-authored a paper for a high-level panel for the G20 on the return on investment of pandemic preparedness.
“We needed evidence to advocate to the government on the importance of imposing restrictions to ensure that the morbidity and mortality would be controlled. So that is where the economic modelling of Imperial supported us as we projected the COVID-19 trajectory in the country over a three month period. The results of the model were presented to senior officials of the Ministry of Health, the COVID-19 Task Force and the advisers of His Excellency the President. This was taken up by mainstream media as well. This modelling, along with other relevant information, meant that the government imposed a six week lockdown instead of the 10 days they were initially planning to curtail the Delta wave in the country. This meant there was a significant number of lives saved with mobility and mortality being controlled over a short period.”
Dr Chatura Wijesundara - National Consultant for Knowledge Management & Monitoring, WHO Country Office, Sri Lanka
Jameel Institute Symposium
Now in its third year, the annual event brought together leaders from academia, industry and the public sector to share their experiences to inform decision makers and those working in public health. This year focussed on the need to take an interdisciplinary approach – spanning economic, social and behavioural sciences and epidemiology – in learning lessons about how the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic could help improved preparedness and responses to future pandemics.
Session 1 - Economics of pandemic preparedness
The first session, ‘Economics of pandemic preparedness’, delved into the economics of pandemic preparedness, drawing on expert insights from academia, the private sector, and the World Bank. Moderated by Professor Katarina Hauck, the panellists were Dr Andrew Burns (World Bank), Dr Gunther Kraut (Munich Re) and the Jameel Institute's Professor Timothy Hallett.
Professor Hallett highlighted the importance of public health security in mitigating future risks and the need to invest in healthcare systems. He explained how this is especially true in many low- and middle-income countries, where healthcare systems may often be fragile and stretched, but undergoing important reforms:
“We’ve got to overcome this difficulty we have in not really being able to quantify the return on investment ... everyone knows it’s important to have a strong health system with plenty of staff, strong supply chains, and cold chains…but quantifying these benefits is difficult. We need to get better at that.”
Session 2 - Behaviour interventions during a pandemic
In the second session, Professor Marisa Miraldo from the Imperial College Business School led a panel of behavioural scientists and engineers to discuss how individuals and populations engaged with non-pharmaceutical interventions during the pandemic. Professor Miraldo was joined by Professor Dame Theresa Marteau (Cambridge University), Dr Matteo Galizzi (London School of Economics) and Professor Rafael Calvo (Dyson School of Design Engineering).
Session 3 - Inequality in a pandemic and the impact
In the final session, a panel led by Professor Nimalan Arinaminpathy, a lead investigator at the Jameel Institute, provided crucial insights from middle income countries into the unequal nature of the impact of pandemics. Professor Arinaminpathy was joined by Dr Mark Blecher (National Treasury of South Africa), Professor Indrani Gupta (Institute of Economic Growth), Dr Tonatiuh Barrientos-Gutierrez (Center for Population Health, National Institute of Public Health) and Dr Mark Blecher (National Treasury of South Africa).
“The strongest line of defence we will have [against future outbreaks] will be our underlying health status and the strength of our health system.”
Dr Tonatiuh Barrientos-Gutierrez - Director of the Centre for Population Health, National Institute of Public Health, Mexico
Thank you
“I am incredibly proud of how the team has continued to remain resilient and it has been a pleasure meeting the team in-person over the year to look beyond the pandemic, incorporate the lessons learned and refocus on our research priorities. We have also had the opportunity to realign some of the themes to reflect how the Institute’s work will adapt to the challenges of the post-pandemic world.”