COMBACTE Network Mobilized to Support COVID-19 Projects

COMBACTE’s established and growing infrastructure built over the last seven years is prepared to provide every support. Hospital sites capable of quickly and reliably recruiting, monitoring and data collection will be recruited and assigned to the trials in hand. In aligning efforts with networks such as PREPARE, COMBACTE has the capability to include many sites and aggregate all clinical data.

COMBACTE’s clinical and laboratory network contains more than 1.000 hospitals, and 750 laboratories across Europe. This network has been mobilized to support several COVID-19 related projects in the coming weeks, months and years:

• The RECOVER project – a consortium on rapid European COVID-19 emergency research response that aims to understand the pathophysiology and epidemiology of COVID-19, as well as identify potential targets for therapeutic or preventive interventions;
• Another part of RECOVER is a survey to assess perceptions and preparedness of European healthcare workers for COVID-19. Results will provide guidelines on how to protect valuable healthcare personnel;
• A survey among COMBACTE LAB-Net to assess the capacity and capability to detect the new coronavirus;
• Expansion of the REMAP-CAP and MERMAIDS studies in the PREPARE consortium, also as part of the new RECOVER consortium;
• An interventional study in participating hospitals University Medical Center Utrecht and the Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen on efficacy of the BCG vaccine in preventing and/or mitigating COVID-19 infection in health workers working with COVID-19 patients.

COVID-19 Pandemic

In December 2019 the first patients infected with pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan, China were being reported to the WHO China Office. By the 24^th of January the first cases of COVID-19 were recorded in Europe. Within less than two months the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic.

Since 2013 COMBACTE brings together experts from both academic and pharmaceutical field to tackle one of the most threatening healthcare problems worldwide: antimicrobial resistance. COMBACTE has built a solid foundation for conducting high quality multiple multisite international clinical trials in the area of antimicrobial drugs development.

COMBACTE remains highly committed to maintaining its established network and making it available to combat the current pandemic.