Antwerp, Belgium – 24 February 2020
Confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infected patients have been reported in Europe for several weeks now and PREPARE has been monitoring developments very closely.
With ongoing clusters in Iran, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Japan and more recently in Italy, we anticipate further large clusters and possibly community-wide transmission in Europe and therefore are preparing our clinical research response accordingly.
“It is more and more likely that the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak will become a pandemic and PREPARE will rapidly raise the response level to Mode 3 if sustained transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is observed in several European countries. We are continuing a coordinated, coherent and united clinical research response” says Herman Goossens, Professor at the University of Antwerp and Coordinator of PREPARE.
Based on these recent developments, PREPARE will continue its preparations for launching a clinical research response in Europe should this be needed. At present, 366 hospitals and 73 paediatric sites from PREPARE partner networks, COMBACTE and Penta, are contributing to the important collective efforts in standardising the information gathered from affected patients.
Read more here.