The funding announcement marks a new phase for the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team 10 years after it was first set up in 2016 with LSHTM as a founding partner
The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) has been selected to lead the research arm of the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) in an £18m initiative to continue to help respond to global health emergencies.
The new five-year funding from the Department of Health and Social Care and in partnership with the National Institute for Health and Care Research sees LSHTM take on the role of lead of an expanded academic consortium for the next phase of the UK-PHRST, which is run in partnership with the UK Health Security Agency.
Alongside other institutions in the UK and across six countries in Africa and Southeast Asia, LSHTM researchers will co-lead cutting edge studies to protect people from epidemic threats and improve health security in the UK and globally. These will fill key evidence gaps in equity, gender, mental health and psychosocial support, One Health, diagnostics, community engagement and AI.
First established in 2016 in the wake of the 2014-15 Ebola crisis in West Africa, the UK-PHRST brought together LSHTM expertise in infectious disease, epidemic preparedness and response with UK government and partners around the world to form a specialist team ready to help prevent outbreaks from developing into global emergencies.
Over the last decade the partnership has supported communities affected by outbreaks through deployments, operational research and capacity strengthening activities including in response to mpox outbreaks in Rwanda, cholera in Zambia, and Ebola responses across Africa. Through this, the team has built a network of trusted relationships with national and regional partners including WHO, Africa CDC, UNICEF, and Médecins Sans Frontières.
Containing outbreaks at source reduces the risk of international spread, and the shared intelligence generated through deployments and research directly strengthens UK preparedness planning. As climate change, urbanisation, and zoonotic spillover increase the frequency of epidemic threats, the programme's new investments in faster diagnostics, AI-assisted decision support, scientific exchange, and community-level research capacity will support improved health security in the UK as well as in partner countries.
The partnership announcement comes as the UK-PHRST has deployed seven technical experts (including staff from LSHTM) to support WHO and response in Eastern DRC, Kinshasa and Brazzaville with technical advice for surveillance, community engagement and infection prevention and control to respond to the ongoing Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in the region.
LSHTM Director Professor Liam Smeeth said: "We are delighted to be awarded this renewed opportunity to lead the UK-PHRST's academic consortium, building on our impact since 2016 and ensuring that LSHTM continues to deliver our vision of a more healthy, sustainable and equitable world for everyone.
"Working in partnership with the consortium's low- and middle-income country institutions, we are uniquely placed to make a tangible impact on local people's lives and improve both the global and UK's health security through the UK-PHRST research agenda."
UK Public Health Rapid Support Team Director Dr Edmund Newman said: "This announcement is brilliant news as it ushers in a new phase for UK-PHRST, 10 years after it was first set up in 2016 with LSHTM as a founding partner.
"Thanks to funding provided by the UK Department of Health and Social Care and in partnership with the National Institute of Health Research, this renewed research consortium will continue our commitment to shared leadership to sustainably prevent and support response to global health emergencies through operational research."
Jenny Chapman, Minister for Africa and International Development, said: "The UK Public Health Rapid Support Team brings world-class expertise, from infection control to community engagement and modelling the data. It demonstrates our commitment to global health security, and supporting the African-led response to this crisis.
"We are investing in the research, evidence and local leadership needed to respond faster and more effectively to this deadly disease."
A research plan designed to fill gaps in epidemic preparedness and response
Focusing on equity and gender will help ensure future epidemic responses do not reinforce or deepen existing inequalities by conducting research to provide evidence for the inclusion of social science expertise, emphasising the importance of combatting misinformation and prioritising local community insights as part of public health emergency response.
The team will continue to enhance provision of systematic mental health and psychosocial support interventions in epidemic response by generating evidence around the mental health impact of epidemics and the effectiveness of interventions on the ground.
Using a One Health approach, alongside a dedicated epidemic diagnostics and genomics research stream, will help improve early warning and surveillance of zoonotic epidemics by integrating human, animal, vector and other environmental signals with decentralisation of testing and pathogen identification through genomics, clinical tools and AI.
Finally, to tackle challenges around biases in decision making during epidemics, the consortium will assess and improve the quality of decision-making in epidemic responses by evaluation and systematising documentation, as well as the development of AI tools for epidemic detection and risk prediction.
The new research partnership also includes the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and Oxford University's Pandemic Sciences Institute, alongside six low-and-middle income (LMIC) partner institutions: the pan-African École Inter-États des Sciences et Médecine Vétérinaires; the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh; Makerere University, Uganda; the Université Catholique de Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo; and SIMAD University, Somalia. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention will serve as a convening and coordinating actor across the partnership.
Shifting leadership to those closest to affected communities
A defining feature of the new partnership is its commitment to equitable research leadership. LMIC institutions will co-identify and co-lead research projects, with a commitment to LMIC-led authorship on peer-reviewed publications. Governance will be shared through a Steering Committee with rotating leadership, equal partner representation, and a majority female composition.
The partnership will draw on LSHTM's EquiPar framework, practical guidance developed to establish and strengthen equitable research partnerships, ensuring that resources, expertise, and benefits flow fairly to LMIC partners and strengthen national systems over the long term.
