The new research spans more than 18 countries across Africa, South America and South East Asia and covers topics such as transmission and infection control, and how people are affected by the disease in different settings and their long-term outcomes, including the risk of neurological problems. Other projects focus on the indirect consequences of the pandemic, for example on mental health, tuberculosis, and provision of HIV care and other health services.
The new projects include:
- developing optimal critical care pathways for COVID-19 patients across seven African countries by establishing networks to rapidly share successful interventions
- understanding the mental health needs of older people in Peru, and how they are being impacted by restrictive measures intended to protect them from COVID-19
- preventing the spread of COVID-19 across different communities in Malawi by better understanding the impact of living conditions on infection rates between crowded and less crowded urban settings.
The projects, which have received nearly £7.6 million of funding, focus on four priority COVID-19 research topics highlighted by the World Health Organization COVID-19 Global Research Roadmap:
- epidemiology
- clinical management
- infection prevention and control
- health system responses.
Dr Lesong Conteh, chair of the funding committee Global Effort on COVID-19 (GECO) Health Research funding call and deputy chair of the Independent Scientific Advisory Group for NIHR's Global Health Research Portfolio, said: “Coronavirus does not respect borders, and the impact of the pandemic is being felt across the globe. These varied multidisciplinary new research projects will directly benefit people in low- and middle-income countries, provide learning opportunities globally, and complement NIHR and UKRI’s cross government approach to funding COVID-19 research in the UK."
Professor Andrew Thompson, UKRI’s International Champion, said: “COVID-19 is having devastating consequences across the world. Through these projects researchers from across developing countries and the UK will combine their skills, experience and expertise to find urgently needed solutions across different healthcare systems and settings, to support the lives and livelihoods of people across the globe in the most appropriate ways for the situations in which they are living.”
One such project is looking at how the spread of COVID-19 is impacting differently on people depending on how crowded their households are.
Professor Victor Mwapasa, University of Malawi’s College of Medicine who is leading the project, explains: “The study will assess the intensity of COVID-19 transmission and the social and economic impact of the infection in medium- and high-density Malawian households. Findings will inform the design of COVID-19 care programs and social safety nets for resource-constrained households. The UK-Malawi collaboration is essential as it will promote sharing of lessons, across countries, on strategies to combat the infection.”
These new projects are funded by cross UK government aid funds through the NIHR and UKRI GECO Health Research funding call.
Read about the funded projects
Image: Mother and child participants in the South African birth cohort study, the Drakenstein Child Health study