The International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) has been awarded up to £16.5 million to build on its globally-recognised efforts to prevent illness and deaths from epidemic-prone infectious diseases.
From the devastating COVID-19 pandemic to the major and growing health problem of dengue – outbreak-prone infectious diseases put lives and livelihoods at risk around the world.
ISARIC supports clinical researchers to generate the evidence needed to improve the care of patients and reduce illness and deaths, whilst substantially improving clinical research readiness for emerging infectious disease threats. The consortium’s individual patient dataset of COVID-19 cases is the largest of its kind, with around 1 million records.
Established in 2011, ISARIC is a global, grass-roots consortium of over 70 clinical research networks in 140 countries, working together on epidemic infections such as COVID-19, pandemic influenza, Nipah virus, dengue, Ebola, Lassa fever and plague. The ISARIC Global Support Centre is hosted by the Pandemic Sciences Institute (PSI) at the University of Oxford.
With funding over five years from Wellcome, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (as UK International Development) and the Gates Foundation, ISARIC will accelerate the implementation of high-quality clinical research studies of outbreak-prone infectious diseases such as respiratory viral infections, dengue, Ebola and Marburg.
Dr Fernando Bozza, ISARIC Chair, said: “As long as we remain underprepared to manage outbreaks of infectious diseases, epidemics and pandemics will continue to threaten and disrupt millions of lives and livelihoods around the world.
“This funding will help to advance clinical research quality and capacity to improve the care of patients, especially in countries where resources are limited.”
Professor Sir Peter Horby, Executive Director of ISARIC and PSI Director, said: “Patients lie at the heart of every outbreak and clinical research is central to addressing their needs. Over the past decade, ISARIC has made major contributions towards understanding and tackling emerging infectious diseases.
“With this generous support from our funders, ISARIC will be able to increase the quality and impact of clinical research, and improve agility and readiness. Recognising the barriers and power imbalance highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, this funding will help empower clinical researchers in low- and middle-income countries, where the greatest burden of disease exists.”
Dr Titus Divala, Head of Epidemics and Epidemiology at Wellcome, said: “During disease outbreaks a speedy response is key to saving lives, but we must also learn lessons along the way to improve responses and preparedness for future outbreaks. ISARIC is a great example of how we can do both simultaneously, gathering critical evidence while saving lives. By embedding rigorous research into frontline responses, we can enter a new era where we are learning and improving from each outbreak to create a sustainable, self-improving global health system that grows stronger and protects more people with every challenge it faces.”
ISARIC members have been strengthening the global research infrastructure for over a decade, while simultaneously responding to global and local health emergencies through clinical research and treatment trials. ISARIC’s mpox response, for instance, stems from several years of research, including standardised tools to support the generation of clinically meaningful and reliable data to inform trial design and case management.
