What will it take? Perspectives from five low- and middle-income countries on opportunities and challenges of introducing new maternal vaccines.

Background: New vaccines for pregnant women have recently been introduced in some high-income countries to protect infants in early life. Implementing maternal immunisation (MI) successfully in low- and middle-income countries will require planning and adaptations to immunisation and maternal health programs. To inform cost of MI delivery studies, we gathered perspectives from key stakeholders in five countries (Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, and Nepal) regarding health system requirements, opportunities, and challenges to introducing new maternal vaccines into routine health programs.

Cost of delivering childhood RSV prevention interventions to the health system in Kenya: a prospective analysis.

Objectives: To evaluate the cost of delivering childhood respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) prevention interventions to the health system in Kenya.

Design: A prospective (cost projection) activity-based costing study.

Setting: Kenya, national introduction of interventions.

Local patterns of spread of influenza A H3N2 virus in coastal Kenya over a 1-year period revealed through virus sequence data.

The patterns of spread of influenza A viruses in local populations in tropical and sub-tropical regions are unclear due to sparsity of representative spatiotemporal sequence data. We sequenced and analyzed 58 influenza A(H3N2) virus genomes sampled between December 2015 and December 2016 from nine health facilities within the Kilifi Health and Demographic Surveillance System (KHDSS), a predominantly rural region, covering approximately 891 km along the Kenyan coastline. The genomes were compared with 1571 contemporaneous global sequences from 75 countries.

The cost of care for children hospitalized with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) associated lower respiratory infection in Kenya.

Background: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is one of the main causes of hospitalization for lower respiratory tract infection in children under five years of age globally. Maternal vaccines and monoclonal antibodies for RSV prevention among infants are approved for use in high income countries. However, data are limited on the economic burden of RSV disease from low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) to inform decision making on prioritization and introduction of such interventions.

Symptom prevalence and secondary attack rate of SARS-CoV-2 in rural Kenyan households: A prospective cohort study.

Background: We estimated the secondary attack rate of SARS-CoV-2 among household contacts of PCR-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in rural Kenya and analysed risk factors for transmission.

Methods: We enrolled incident PCR-confirmed cases and their household members. At baseline, a questionnaire, a blood sample, and naso-oropharyngeal swabs were collected.