We choose ... to build more effective responses to pandemic threats
Launched in 2022, the Covid Treatment QuickStart Consortium grew out of an urgent need to aid countries still feeling the grip of Covid-19 by scaling up access to testing and treatment. But even then, the brain trust behind the effort — which is spearheaded by Duke researchers and includes a host of public- and private-sector partners — had a bigger vision.
“We saw an opportunity to partner with countries and strengthen their response to an ongoing health crisis,” says Krishna Udayakumar, M.D., a DGHI professor and director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center, an implementing partner of QuickStart. “But at the same time, doing so lays the groundwork for building more resilient health systems that can better handle future threats and health needs.”
One sign of that lasting impact comes from Rwanda’s efficient response to an outbreak of Marburg virus, which was identified for the first time in the country in September 2024. QuickStart’s on-the-ground team aided in Rwanda’s response, helping the country end the outbreak after only 66 confirmed cases and 15 deaths, among the lowest mortality rates ever recorded in a Marburg outbreak.
“The partnerships and preparedness that helped bring this Marburg outbreak to such a swift end saved many lives in Rwanda and helped protect the rest of the world from a potentially catastrophic deadly epidemic,” Rwanda’s Minister of Health Sabin Nsanzimana wrote in announcing the end of the outbreak in December 2024.
As we explored in DGHI’s summer 2025 article, the innovative QuickStart project continues to deliver benefits even as its pandemic work winds down. And with its coalition of public and private collaborators, it may offer a roadmap for making progress on tough global health problems in the years ahead.