UMass Medical School takes lead on $20M toward Ebola prevention

Write a Comment

By Emily Micucci

A group of health care professionals led by the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester have been awarded a $20 million grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to expand their efforts toward preventing another Ebola outbreak in Liberia.

According to a statement from the medical school (UMMS), the two-year CDC grant is an extension of the Ebola relief work conducted by the Academic Consortium Combating Ebola in Liberia (ACCEL), a UMMS-led group that also includes partners at Boston Children’s Hospital and other academic medical centers. The consortium has trained thousands of health care workers on infection control, implemented Ebola diagnostic testing and improved blood collection practices in the wake of the West African Ebola epidemic that sickened more than 10,000 and killed 4,800 people in Liberia last year.

A $7.5 million grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation’s #TackleEbola campaign supported ACCEL’s initial relief efforts.

“The CDC funding will support work with our Liberian colleagues to address significant gaps in health care worker training, physical infrastructure and health care consumables,” said Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga, vice provost for clinical and translational science and global health at UMMS and director of the UMass Center for Clinical and Translational Science.

According to UMMS, the CDC grant addresses three objectives, including strengthening infection control in Liberian health care facilities by training health care workers; improving and expanding public health laboratories and hospital diagnostic services to allow for rapid identification of Ebola and other contagious diseases, and strengthening blood transfusion and collection practices to safeguard against the spread of infectious diseases through the blood supply.

In addition to UMMS and Boston Children’s Hospital, members of the ACCEL group include Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City; the University of Maryland; the University of Florida; Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and the Massachusetts Institute for Technology.