The Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital (ISTH) has been formally invited to join the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s (Africa CDC) Hub-and-Spoke Network — a continent-wide clinical research system designed to generate scientific evidence at speed when epidemics strike.

The invitation, conveyed by Dr. Fallah P. Mosoka, Africa CDC’s Deputy Director for Research, Clinical Trials and Innovation, identifies ISTH as a participating national hub institution, coordinated regionally through the Nigerian Clinical Research Consortium (NCRC).

For a hospital that has spent decades on the frontline of Lassa fever — treating patients through annual outbreaks while building one of West Africa’s most respected molecular diagnostic laboratories — the recognition marks a significant elevation onto the continental stage.

Chief Medical Director of ISTH, Prof, Reuben Agbons Eifediyi said the choice of the hospital is a testimony to its rapid growth and influence in Africa. “We are highly interested as the regional hub and ready to support other sites because we have built institutional human resource capacity over time, thanks to the Federal Government”, he said while responding to the invitation.

However, Eifediyi noted that the hospital needs more equipment, physical infrastructure and human resource development.

The Hub-and-Spoke model, coordinated by Africa CDC in collaboration with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and its Technical Coordinating Partners — the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) and the Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia at LSHTM (MRCG) — links experienced, large research “hubs” to emerging “spoke” sites closer to outbreak-prone areas. Hubs supply technical strength, mentorship and coordination; spokes provide geographic reach and frontline evidence generation.

The logic is hard-won from bitter experience. From Ebola in West Africa to COVID-19, African health systems have repeatedly treated epidemic patients without the trial infrastructure to study the diseases killing them. The result: life-saving evidence — on treatments, vaccines, transmission — was either delayed or generated elsewhere, on someone else’s terms.

“Preparedness is not a single act or a single actor; it is a long-term commitment to resilience,” Christof Vinnemeier, CEPI’s Senior Clinical Development Operations Lead, said of the programme. The model is central to the global 100 Days Mission — the ambition to have vaccines ready against a new pathogen within 100 days of its identification.
The network has been co-created with Member States, using a guidance document and pre-defined criteria to select institutions with demonstrated capacity to conduct and coordinate high-quality research.

ISTH’s selection is no surprise to those who follow West African outbreak science. The hospital hosts the Institute of Lassa Fever Research and Control, established in 2007, and set up a molecular PCR diagnostic laboratory in 2008 — work documented in landmark studies on Lassa diagnostics that have been cited hundreds of times in the scientific literature. The facility manages Lassa fever outbreaks of public health concern every year and has partnered with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control on nationwide Lassa fever management training.

It is precisely this combination — endemic disease burden, laboratory depth and clinical volume — that the hub-and-spoke architecture is built to harness.

The broader push in Nigeria
The invitation lands amid a wider build-out of Nigerian trial capacity under CEPI’s Research Preparedness Programme, which supports five clinical trial sites in West Africa. In Bauchi State, the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital has gone from “bare patches of land” to a fully purpose-built clinical trial centre preparing to launch a Lassa fever drug trial.

In Ebonyi State, a new trial unit — described by site lead Professor Benedict Azuogu as “the fastest built facility of such magnitude in our institution in more than 30 years” — has already been selected for a Novartis-sponsored Phase 3 sickle cell trial, proof that preparedness infrastructure attracts routine research that keeps teams “warm” between outbreaks. Mobile clinical trial units are also being piloted to take research into rural and outbreak hotspot communities.

Under the invitation’s terms, ISTH is expected to provide formal institutional feedback and has nominated Dr Efe Petra Edeawe, a public health physician, as the hospital’s focal person. He will engage Africa CDC and its partners on the implementation framework, roles and responsibilities, and a phased roadmap of activities aimed at sustainable capacity building.

Membership would position ISTH to set up trials on short timelines, collaborate across borders, share expertise, and draw on specialist support from across the continent.

“We are confident that your institution’s participation in the Hub-and-Spoke Network will make a valuable contribution to this important pillar of the African health R&D ecosystem initiative,” Dr. Mosoka said.