Conall Watson

ERGO senior research fellow in vaccine epidemiology

Consultant in Health Protection
Project lead for Vaccine Efficacy Evaluation for Priority Emerging Diseases (VEEPED)

Conall is an infectious disease epidemiologist in the Epidemic Diseases Research Group, Oxford, and a consultant in health protection in Public Health England’s South East Centre.

His research interests are around emerging diseases which have the potential to be prevented through vaccination, and evidence-informed communicable disease control more broadly. During the 2014-2015 Ebola emergency, as part of a World Health Organization-led partnership, he jointly designed a novel “ring-vaccination” cluster randomised trial of the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine. This demonstrated high efficacy in Guinea and led to wider deployment of the vaccine in West Africa and more recently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Conall leads the Oxford component of a multi-institution NIHR project called VEEPED (Vaccine Efficacy Evaluation for Priority Emerging Diseases) which applies mathematical modelling and infectious disease epidemiology for the design of potential vaccine efficacy studies for emerging diseases. Conall is a member of the WHO R&D Blueprint for epidemic preparedness working group on vaccine trial designs.

Other interests include influenza control, typhoid fever control and serological surveillance of infectious diseases.

Key publications

Determinants of Transmission Risk During the Late Stage of the West African Ebola Epidemic
Robert A. et al, (2019), American Journal of Epidemiology, 188, 1319 - 1327
Efficacy and effectiveness of an rVSV-vectored vaccine in preventing Ebola virus disease: final results from the Guinea ring vaccination, open-label, cluster-randomised trial (Ebola Ça Suffit!)
Henao-Restrepo AM. et al, (2017), The Lancet, 389, 505 - 518
A cross-sectional seroepidemiological survey of typhoid fever in Fiji
Watson CH. et al, (2017), PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 11, e0005786 - e0005786
The ring vaccination trial: a novel cluster randomised controlled trial design to evaluate vaccine efficacy and effectiveness during outbreaks, with special reference to Ebola
(2015), BMJ, h3740 - h3740

Recent publications

Influenza in carehome residents: applying a conceptual framework to describe barriers to the implementation of guidance on treatment and prophylaxis
Phipps E. et al, (2020), Journal of Public Health, 42, 602 - 609
Zika seroprevalence declines and neutralizing antibodies wane in adults following outbreaks in French Polynesia and Fiji.
Henderson AD. et al, (2020), eLife, 9
Low chikungunya virus seroprevalence two years after emergence in Fiji.
Aubry M. et al, (2020), International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, 90, 223 - 225
The Invisible Burden: Diagnosing and Combatting Typhoid Fever in Asia and Africa.
Pitzer VE. et al, (2019), Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, 69, S395 - S401
Sustained Low-Level Transmission of Zika and Chikungunya Viruses after Emergence in the Fiji Islands.
Kama M. et al, (2019), Emerging infectious diseases, 25, 1535 - 1538

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