During the first year of life, the developing human immune system encounters many challenges from both infections and vaccinations. A birth cohort for the study of infant immune responses to infection and vaccination was established in the Sukuta Health Centre (a few miles from the main MRC site at Fajara) in January 2002. Infants born at the Health Centre are recruited and baseline samples of cord blood, maternal blood, colostrum, placental biopsies and imprints (for the diagnosis of placental malaria) are taken. The children are monitored throughout the first year of life, looking at clinical and growth parameters, treating inter-current illnesses, and collecting blood, urine and throat swab samples to monitor the incidence of infection and the humoral and cellular immune response to infection and vaccination. Approximately 250 infants are recruited at Sukuta Health Centre into MRC studies each year. This cohort provides an excellent setting to examine the development of the infant immune system in response to the antigenic challenges of infection and vaccination.
The infant immunology research has focused particularly on vaccination schedules that are part of the Expanded Programme of Immunisation (EPI) and early life infections. These include measles, CMV, EBV, malaria and more recently immunity to TB. The Sukuta cohort also provides an excellent platform for studying many new or modified vaccine candidates and at present the new TB vaccine (MVA-Ag85, produced in Oxford) is being tested as part of a Phase I clinical trial.
