It is an arbovirus disease that is asymptotic in the majority of cases but can cause serious health issues, including severe birth abnormalities. Case numbers are increasing and yet there is a lack of detection and also mis-diagnosis for other vector-borne diseases such as malaria. This is a facility to connect those working to address Zika through the generation of evidence to understand the burden, describe the disease and work to develop treatments and vaccines. Zika requires a strong component of collaborative and multi-disciplinary research because there is a need for social science data to support public health, education and engagement. This needs the vector scientists to stop transmission and also many other areas such as better detection and diagnosis in this poorly understood disease.
Zika Consortia
ZIKAlliance, ZIKAction, and ZikaPLAN are European Union-funded consortia that work closely to build a preparedness platform in Latin America and the Caribbean. The three consortia collaborate on harmonized protocols for cohort studies of pregnant women, infants, and children, common communication strategies, and the development of data-sharing tools and methodology.
Zika is currently impacting many countries in which levels of existing research experience and capacity vary greatly. There are many unanswered questions about Zika and so we need to embed research training within the public health response to this outbreak. Therefore it is important that all affected regions are involved and have the opportunity to take part in research, irrespective of their existing experience and infrastructure.
This area within this Zika research website aims to provide the tools, training, support and guidance to help healthcare providers and laboratory staff undertake the collection of samples and data for the purpose of research.
Many of these resources are drawn from the wider Global Health Network within which this platform sits. However, there will be an ongoing effort to develop online tools and hold research skills workshops in the affected regions. So watch this space as more courses, information and tools are added. Also, do contribute! Say what training you need or share any training tools that you have - this is an open sharing space and so do get involved. It's all about speeding up the process of getting high quality evidence to answer the many questions about Zika and then ultimately to conduct trials on any interventions and vaccines that present as possibilities to control the spread of infection.
The Global Health Regulatory Requirements Database is designed to help researchers and regulatory affairs professionals access the information they need to develop effective strategies for gaining approval to conduct clinical trials and market products. The database provides high-level information on regulatory requirements, timelines, costs, and other basic information required to create product development plans for new tools.
These free, certificated and recognised courses are provided to give a general introduction to many of the key steps involved in setting up a study they include short topics such as Good Clinical Practice, Good Laboratory Practice and longer modular courses and cover many of the required steps such as setting the question, data management and community engagement.
The Process Map is a cross-cutting tool that guides the process of setting up a study and provides links to explanations about each component step and any tools, templates and training that exist on each step.
SiteFinder has created a list of research-ready research sites who have expressed an interest specifically in conducting research into Zika Virus. In response to the outbreak, SiteFinder has created a specific disease listing for Zika, meaning that sites who are interested in conducting research in this area can easily be found by those planning studies.
Skills sharing workshops The Global Health Network is well known for working with partners in different countries to bring together all those that work on clinical research studies to share their experiences and challenges within a specific city or regions. These can be broad or topic specific. The Global Health Network support the local research institute pull together an agenda for the workshop and then gathers speakers and host the registration process. These workshops have been very successful. Three full day workshops are being planned for 2016 to increase and support the research needs for Zika:
i) Honduras - alongside the Journada Cientifica in September discussing building the capacity of Ethics committees and IRBs during outbreak research, and on applying ethical principles during outbreaks more generally (e.g. for the whole research team).
ii) Columbia - encouraging research capacity in healthcare facilities to enable outbreak research taking place in late August.
iii) Dominican Republic/Nicaragua - TBC. Considering the ethics of research in emergency settings.
The WHO have created a course for developing surveillance programmes for congenital anomalies in low resource settings.
Research Reporting The EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) Network is an international initiative that seeks to improve the reliability and value of published health research literature by promoting transparent and accurate reporting and wider use of robust reporting guidelines. The site is available in Portuguese and Spanish, with many key documents already translated to Spanish. Efforts are underway to translate more key documents into Portuguese.
Other training links and resources Please contact us if you have any other materials or resources you would like to share with the community.
