In recent years great progress has been made in providing an increasing number of effective vaccines against pediatric infectious diseases for low-income countries.

Sadly, many other infectious diseases deadly for millions of infants, children and adults still remain without an effective vaccine. This is not because they are not technologically feasible, but because little to no money has been invested in them to fight epidemic diseases in developing countries. The new vaccine against iNTS will use a novel production technology named GMMA. The “Generalized Module for Membrane Antigens” (GMMA) is a new technology developed at the GSK Vaccines Institute for Global Health (GVGH) in Siena (Italy) and particularly relevant for low/middle-income countries, being highly cost-effective.

The vaccine has been designed especially with developing countries in mind as very immunogenic, safe and easy to manufacture, encompassing a relatively simple production process. GMMA technology is self-adjuvanting, as surface polysaccharides and antigens are delivered in their native conformations. For all these reasons, the Achille Sclavo Foundation, thanks also to GSK Vaccines as well as to GVGH, is actively involved in the S-AFRIVAC project and attracting interest from public and private no-profit supporters.

The partnership is multidisciplinary: the project includes public research institutions, industry and private no-profit research entities: a very good example of a Collective Impact project, where all partners from different sectors bring their contribution towards a common shared social goal.