LSHTM's mission is simple: to 'improve health worldwide'.
In 2014, over 400 of our staff volunteered to fight Ebola in West Africa.
Since then, strengthening research on emerging infections
and working closely on preparing for and responding to epidemics has been a priority in our strategy.
All that means that we will be exposed to more and more of these emerging infections.
The risk is getting bigger because in today's world, an epidemic,
an outbreak 5000 miles from here can affect us tomorrow.
By prioritising research and education
in this area and establishing specialist teams to respond to crises as they were unfolding
we were in a unique position to act after a novel coronavirus emerged at the end of 2019 and rapidly spread across the world.
In September 2019, our teams were on the front line in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
responding to the world's second largest Ebola epidemic.
Experts from our UK Public Health Rapid Support Team were deployed to support the DRC government
and World Health Organization on the ground.
We ran new trials of an Ebola vaccine in DRC and neighbouring Uganda to prevent the spread of the epidemic and
gather crucial information about the vaccine's effectiveness to be better prepared to fight Ebola in the future.
In the UK, LSHTM was a founding partner in the country's first dedicated Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre.
Experts were working to open a new facility that would rapidly deliver new pandemic vaccines
for the benefit of people all over the world.
At the same time, our education teams in the UK and the Gambia
were developing and delivering new short courses on topics critical to pandemic response.
These included: modelling infectious diseases and building trust in vaccines.
Just months later, as COVID-19 emerged, LSHTM immediately formed an institutional taskforce.
The taskforce directed research priorities, rapidly facilitated collaborations
and enabled new initiatives to get underway at speed.
Our experts were at the forefront of national and international efforts,
from modelling the spread, control measures and impact of the virus to tackling attitudes and sentiments around vaccines.
Clinically-trained staff and students immediately returned to work in the NHS.
Our communications team provided daily updates and tackled waves of misinformation about the pandemic.
Our academics and alumni advised governments in the UK and many other countries,
as well as organisations including the WHO and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
With many LSHTM staff based in Africa,
we scaled up surveillance, diagnostic and testing capacity,
supporting national governments and ministries of health on mitigation efforts,
treating COVID-19 patients in specialist clinics,
and strengthening Africa's overall preparedness measures through genome sequencing
to understand the movement of the virus.
Our COVID-19 free online course, developed quickly in the early phases of the outbreak,
reached more than 208,000 participants around the globe.
Our existing education programmes continued at high quality through the pandemic,
training future health leaders, managers and researchers.
This is the generation who will provide critical expertise around the world as we deal with the impact of this pandemic
for many years to come.
Our alumni led response efforts in their own institutions and countries around the world,
and 1,200 of our students and alumni work together to support rapid research efforts.
In truly unprecedented circumstances,
our expertise and collaboration with partners gave us the opportunity and obligation
to take a leading global role in responding to COVID-19.