CIDRZ through the Enteric Disease and Vaccine Research Department Research team participated at the Vaccines Against Shigella & ETEC (VASE) Conference held in the United States of America from 29^th November 2022 to 1^st December 2022. The team successfully presented 16 abstracts on Cholera, Shigella, Enterotoxigenic E coli and other diarrheagenic e coli, as well as incidence of causes of diarrhea among children in Zambia.

The department supports the Zambian Ministry of Health with outbreak investigations and provides a platform for coordinated development and deployment of state-of-the-art technologies and analyses, which can be utilized effectively for

• vaccine research (vaccine discovery, and early development and evaluation),
•  diagnostics (development and field validation)
• epidemiology of endemic, emerging and re-emerging diseases
• Immunology as it relates to natural immunity as well as vaccine induced
• recombinant protein engineering for new diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics. We also support the Zambian Ministry of Health with outbreak investigations.

During the conference which aimed at giving a global update on the progress of the respective diarrheal vaccine development and provide opportunities for collaboration, three of the oral abstract presentations made were selected for inclusion in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Product Development for Vaccines Advisory Committee (PDVAC), vaccine development updates, and to feature in a special issue of “The Journal Microorganisms.”

CIDRZ had the largest representation at the conference and was recognized as a key institution in the sector.

Zambia is among the global leaders contributing to data on ETEC vaccine development and has been considered as a research destination for enteric disease and respective vaccine research.