ANRS | Emerging Infectious Diseases

Our goals

Scientific coordination, facilitation, evaluation and funding for research into HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, STIs, tuberculosis, and emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.

Our activities

• Promoting scientific, strategic, innovative and integrative models, notably One Health and Global Health
• Sharing and creating value from research findings
• Supporting the needs and interests of those who are ill or affected by disease, alongside patient associations
• Conducting scientific intelligence and sharing information
• Helping prepare for and respond to health crises alongside public authorities

As part of the French COVID-19 research coordination mechanism, ANRS | Emerging Infectious Diseases provides the framework to prioritize and fast-track studies with strong potential. Two bodies have been set up to achieve this:

ANRS|EID’s COVID-19 Scientific Committee:

• to define the changing criteria for prioritizing research
• to evaluate the research projects submitted
• to direct calls for projects (CFP) to areas of specific scientific need

CAPNET, an ad hoc national steering committee for therapeutic clinical trials and other COVID-19 research:

• to award projects with a priority label based on Scientific Committee recommendations
• 69 projects were granted this label out of the 150 evaluated in 2020 and 2021

In 2021, €51M was dedicated to urgent research on COVID-19. Ten projects, representing an investment of €3M, resulted from a Long Covid CFP. In addition, €45M was dedicated to CFPs on HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, STIs and tuberculosis. Numerous working groups have been set up within the Agency to facilitate transdisciplinary COVID-19 research.

Vaccine research

The Agency participates in the French government committee to evaluate COVID-19 vaccine candidates and in the pre-clinical study group (GEPC) alongside other academic research players to prioritize therapeutic and/or preventive candidate vaccines for evaluation in pre-clinical studies.

Since 2020, over 40 COVID-19 research projects have been funded in LMICs. Of all the active international projects in 2021, research projects on COVID-19 represented one third of the projects funded or sponsored by the Agency (see graph).

COVID-19 Task Force

The COVID-19 Task Force in LMICs was created by the Agency and the French Research Institute for Development (IRD) to coordinate research projects carried out by French organizations with their foreign partner institutions in LMICs. The aim of the Task Force is to enable continuous information sharing between the different partners and to propose a coordinated research strategy that responds to the needs and challenges of the on-going SARS COV 2 pandemic.

• EMERGEN: developing sequencing and genomic research in France
• AFROSCREEN: strengthening sequencing in 13 African countries

To better understand, prevent and control emerging infectious diseases at both the national and global level, the Agency is leading 2 national programs:

• PEPR: The emerging infectious diseases priority research and resources program with a budget of €80M over a 3-to-5-year period.
• PHRC: The emerging infectious diseases component of the hospital-based clinical research program: €10M has been allocated to boost hospital clinical research, help improve care quality with new diagnostic and therapeutic methods and validate and disseminate new medical knowledge within the French health care system.

ANRS | Emerging Infectious Diseases is active in the following international initiatives:

• Global Health – European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (GH-EDCTP3)
• Health Security through a One Health approach in sub-Saharan Africa: coordinated by the European Commission, Africa CDC and other European stakeholders
• EU-Response trials, such as DisCoVeRy and EU-SolidAct, coordinating pharmacovigilance
• Research projects on viral hemorrhagic fevers notably Ebola, supporting the PostEboGui cohort in Guinea
• Arbo-France: facilitating preparedness and response to human and animal arbovirus epidemics in mainland France and in the overseas territories

Building capacity

ANRS | Emerging Infectious Diseases works with national authorities at eight partner sites in LMICs: Brazil, Burkina-Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Senegal and Vietnam. The aim is to better manage public health needs identified at local level, implement public health policies in line with those needs, and develop the means to rapidly respond to any emerging diseases. Two-thirds of the active research projects in LMICs are conducted at these sites. The Agency:

• provides funds to administer and manage ongoing studies and to strengthen infrastructure
• supports the training of young, national researchers
• increases North-South and South-South researcher dialogue
• interacts with civil society

ANRS | Emerging Infectious Diseases also has close collaborative partnerships in:

• Guinea
• Mali
• Democratic Republic of the Congo

Inserm, and today ANRS | Emerging infectious diseases, were founding members of GloPID-R and have been represented on the Executive Board since 2013. The Director of ANRS | Emerging infectious diseases, Prof. Yazdan Yazdanpanah, has been an active member of the Scientific Advisory Group and is a GloPID-R co-chair. The Agency is particularly invested in GloPID-R’s Data Sharing Working Group and Clinical Trials Network Working Group. It contributes to, and is a user of, the GloPID Research Project Tracker, particularly to inform the national COVID-19 Task Force and to map French research conducted in LMICs. To improve preparedness and response to emerging infectious diseases on a global scale, the Agency is contributing to GloPID-R’s regional hub strategy, beginning in South-East Asia, working with the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB) and the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED).