GloPID-R facing the COVID-19 emergency with its members and partners

Since the outbreak of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in China in December 2019, GloPID-R and its members have been working with WHO to identify the specific funding research priorities in order to tackle this emerging epidemic.

As a result of this mobilisation, and in order to coordinate and optimise the international research effort to combat this disease, WHO and GloPID-R have organised the “Global research and innovation forum: towards a research roadmap for the 2019 novel Coronavirus” which will be held at the WHO Headquarters in Geneva on February 11-12, 2020. It will be attended by worldwide representatives from the scientific community, public health agencies and regulatory authorities, member state representatives, private organizations, research funders, bioethicists with expertise in emergencies and medical journal editors.

The objective of the meeting is to develop a research roadmap with clearly defined priorities and a governance framework covering the key themes discussed: virus, diagnostics; natural history and transmission; clinical; therapeutics; vaccines; ethics; regulatory science; animal health; data/samples analysis and sharing and social sciences.

When a significant outbreak of a new emerging infectious disease such as the COVID-19 strikes, GloPID-R alliance mobilizes its research funding organisations from across the world to ensure a coordinated, effective and rapid response. Since the emergence of COVID-19, several members of the GloPID-R network have already launched calls for funding to respond to this emergency.

To date these include a €10 million grant from the European Commission Horizon 2020 programme in order to advance understanding of the novel coronavirus epidemic, contribute to more efficient clinical management of patients infected with the virus, as well as public health preparedness and response; up to £20m, to fund several awards in two calls, from the primary government funders of UK medical research, on active intervention development and diagnosing and understanding COVID-19; and a call for proposals to develop and manufacture a proven vaccine approach against COVID-19 from CEPI.

Wellcome is pledging up to £10m to accelerate research and support global efforts to tackle the ongoing novel coronavirus epidemic.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will commit up to $100 million to accelerate the discovery, development and testing of vaccines, treatments and diagnostics for COVID-19.

In the coming days, the Government of Canada will launch a call for a rapid research response to COVID-19. This will be a collaboration between the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

These will be followed rapidly by more calls and GloPID-R, along with WHO, will continue to work with its members to advance the understanding of this disease and limit its impact by fostering solutions.