Conall Watson

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.