Staff with the Covid Treatment QuickStart Consortium lead training for healthcare workers to improve access to Covid-19 treatments for vulnerable populations. Photo courtesy of Duke GHIC
Published August 12, 2025, last updated on August 15, 2025 under Partnerships
When Rwanda faced its first-ever outbreak of Marburg virus in fall 2024, health officials in the East African country relied on lessons from Covid-19 – and a unique partnership forged by Duke researchers in the midst of the pandemic.
Similar to Ebola, the highly contagious Marburg virus can cause severe hemorrhagic fevers that are often fatal, with mortality rates in previous outbreaks sometimes exceeding 80 percent. But Rwanda quelled the outbreak in less than three months, after only 66 confirmed cases and 15 deaths, among the lowest mortality rates ever recorded in a Marburg outbreak.
One factor in that success was the at-hand expertise of the Covid Treatment QuickStart Consortium, a project spearheaded by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center (Duke GHIC) to scale up access to Covid-19 testing and treatment in 10 low- and middle-income countries. Within days of identifying the first Marburg case in September 2024, Rwandan health officials asked staff from the Clinton Health Access Initiative, one of QuickStart’s implementing partners, to aid with the response. The team, which had been working in Rwanda since 2022 to implement QuickStart’s Covid-19 response measures, provided critical staffing and funding to ramp up testing and surveillance, enabling the ministry to act quickly to identify and isolate cases.
“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.
Public health officials have praised Rwanda’s fast action as a model for countries facing emerging health challenges. It’s also an affirmation of QuickStart’s unique partnership, which puts academic researchers at the table with national governments, healthcare companies, in-country implementing partners and health agencies to provide real-time, evidence-based responses to unfolding health threats.
"We saw an opportunity to partner with countries and strengthen their response to an ongoing health crisis,” says Krishna Udayakumar, M.D., Duke GHIC’s director and a professor of global health at Duke. “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.”
Over the past three years, QuickStart has implemented Covid-19 testing and treatment programs at 776 health facilities in 10 low- and middle-income countries, training more than 5,000 staff and facilitating access to antiviral medications. While its in-country work is now scaling down, the consortium will remain active, producing research and policy analyses to help low- and middle-income countries respond to emerging threats such as mpox, avian influenza and novel infectious diseases.
And given the disruptions to traditional funding streams across global health, QuickStart may also hold lessons for how multiple players can work together to address health challenges. “I think the QuickStart model is a great example of the type of public-private partnership that will have impact in global health going forward – a nimble but rigorous, evidence-based approach coupled with strong collaborations with country governments and implementation experts on the ground,” says Elina Urli Hodges, Duke GHIC’s assistant director of programs.
For more about how QuickStart’s resources aided Rwanda’s Marburg response, see this report from the consortium.
