ERGO
Patients are at the heart of every outbreak and we believe that evidence from clinical research can substantially improve both the care of patients and the characterisation and control of outbreaks.
The overarching aim of the Epidemic diseases Research Group Oxford (ERGO) is to reduce the health and socioeconomic impact of emerging and epidemic infections by conducting and enabling clinical research on emerging and epidemic infections.
To ensure that clinical science is a dependable pillar of the response to epidemic infectious diseases, ERGO is developing methodologies, technologies, and platforms that are designed to overcome the inherent challenges of emerging and epidemic infections.
The group is conducting research on a range of epidemic infectious diseases with partners across the world, including avian influenza, Ebola virus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS CoV) and non-polio enteroviruses. ERGO is based within the Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health at the University of Oxford.
Our work and partners include:
- Platform for European Preparedness Against (Re-) emerging Epidemics (PREPARE): an EU funded network for harmonised large-scale clinical research studies on infectious diseases (http://www.prepare-europe.eu).
- Multi-centre EuRopean study of Major Infectious Disease Syndromes (MERMAIDS): we are leading pan-European clinical studies of acute respiratory infections and arbovirus compatible febrile illness through PREPARE (https://www.prepare-europe.eu/About-us/Workpackages/Workpackage-3).
- The UK Public Health Rapid Support Team: a specialist team of health experts ready to be deployed to tackle outbreaks anywhere in the world within 48 hours. ERGO is providing the clinical research capabilities of this team (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-team-of-health-experts-to-tackle-global-disease-outbreaks).
- A training curriculum on Clinical REsearch During Outbreaks (CREDO) with WHO TDR
- International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC): a network of clinical research networks with the vision of fostering global collaborative patient-oriented research between and during epidemics (https://isaric.tghn.org).
- The Rapid Assessment of Potential Intervention and Drugs for Ebola (RAPIDE) trials in Liberia and Sierra Leone and (in partnership with the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp) a study of convalescent plasma to treat Ebola patients in Guinea .
- Data sharing platforms for epidemic infectious diseases in collaboration with the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory (IDDO), (https://www.iddo.org).