DrGemma Nedjati Gilani

I work with Dr Anne Cori and Professor Katharina Hauck, developing mathematical models to understand the cost-effectiveness of vaccination programmes against Ebola Virus Disease.

Since the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine underwent clinical trials in Guinea towards the end of the West African Ebola Outbreak in 2015, there has been significant interest in understanding how many doses need to be stockpiled and the most cost-effective way to use them, during both preventative and reactive vaccination campaigns.

In my work, I develop and run large-scale, individual-based, stochastic models of Ebola Virus Disease outbreaks which also incorporate realistic behavioural and pharmaceutical interventions. By combining the output from our transmission model with economic data on direct costs collected from previous outbreaks, we can assess the cost-effectiveness of different vaccination strategies under different logistical constants and outbreak settings, and estimate the likely vaccine stockpile size needed to prepare for future outbreaks.

I also work with Professor Azra Ghani as a Technical Analyst for the Translational Modelling Hub, working on generalisable transmission models to evaluate pandemic preparedness against a future Disease X pandemic.