Title: Global Health Commitment Bolstered by New Agreement, Flu Pandemic Centenary Project

The agreement with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations U.S. is one of the first formal collaborations between CEPI and an institution of higher learning.

It explores joint cooperative academic and research initiatives, including training possibilities for current and future students and scientists, and puts Georgetown at the forefront for exploring the effects of a future public health emergency.

“CEPI U.S. is pleased to collaborate with Georgetown, an academic leader in global health,” said Dawn O’Connell, CEPI U.S.’ president. “We look forward to working with Georgetown’s faculty, staff and students on a wide range of issues critical to CEPI’s success.”

Global Health Security

CEPI was established in 2017 as a global coalition to finance and coordinate the development of new vaccines to prevent and contain infectious disease epidemics and to ensure that the communities that need them the most have access to them. CEPI U.S. is the American arm of CEPI, which is headquartered in Norway.

“It’s exciting to collaborate with CEPI U.S. to explore additional ways our faculty can contribute to and advance the important global health mission of reducing the burden of infectious diseases,” says Dr. Edward Healton, executive vice president for health sciences and co-chair of Georgetown’s global health initiative. “Focusing on vaccines is good for global health security, but it’s especially good and important for people.”

The university is already home to an infectious disease vaccine pioneer – Dr. Richard Schlegel – whose work with colleagues provided the foundation for the first HPV vaccine.

Existing Contributions

CEPI U.S. and Georgetown’s location in Washington, D.C. allows for collaborative faculty research and professional development activities, with both entities committed to identifying internship, fellowship and postdoctoral opportunities for Georgetown undergraduate and graduate students.

The new agreement adds to Georgetown’s existing contributions to CEPI.

Dr. Jesse Goodman, director of the Center on Medical Product Access, Safety and Stewardship, is a volunteer member of its regulatory working group, which he previously chaired. He also was involved in the initial formative development of and served as a member on its first scientific advisory board.

Spanish Flu Project

Georgetown’s Great Influenza Centenary Project catalyzes university-wide reflection on the historic 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic that killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide.

The project also serves as a platform for exploring the effects of a future public health emergency.

“Through our Global Health Initiative, Georgetown is supporting innovative collaborations of faculty and students working to improve health across multiple disciplines and through all our schools,” says John Monahan, senior global health advisor to the university’s president. “The Great Influenza Project enables us both to look to the past in understanding the social, cultural, economic, political, and ethical dimensions of a public health catastrophe and to look ahead to what those lessons mean for our country and the world in preparing for and addressing future pandemics.”

Monahan is also a Senior Fellow at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy and a Senior Scholar at the university’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.

Understanding the Pandemic

The project promotes multifaceted reflection on the 1918 flu by providing small grants to Georgetown faculty and students eager to explore the pandemic from one or more disciplinary perspectives or consider the effects of a future pandemic.

Tim Newfield, a history and biology professor, emphasized that complex events such as pandemics require multidisciplinary responses. Even recent disease catastrophes, such as the rise of Ebola in West Africa, have suffered from narrow approaches.

“Multiple aspects of the 1918 influenza remain poorly understood,” explained Newfield. “Our appreciation of its exceptional mortality, its global reach, its paths of dissemination, and its emergence are incomplete. Scholars of diverse training must collaborate if we are to understand this historic pandemic … and take lessons from its devastation.”