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The University of Southampton
Primary Care Research Centre

COVID-19 Primary Care Research

Apologies the University website is currently under construction and our project links are not working correctly at this time. Please contact J.Cousins@soton.ac.uk if you have any queries.

Please find detailed below the research around COVID-19 that we are involved in

Projects

PANORAMIC - Platform Adaptive trial of NOvel antivRals for eArly treatMent of COVID-19 In the Community
Co-Chief Investigator:
Paul Little, co-investigators, Nick Francis and Mark Lown
Duration:
1 September 2021-31 August 2022
Funder:
Department of Health and Social Care and the NIHR
CONTACT for the study: m.lown@soton.ac.uk

COVID trial at Home
Sponsored and organised by Synairgen Research Limited.
Primary Care investigator: Nick Francis

COVID-19 virtual hospital Prognostic study (COVPRO)

Lead Investigator: Nick Francis
Duration: 12 Months until April 2021
Contact for the study: Nick Francis


ACE-Inhibitors/Angiotensin Receptor Blockers and risk of death for people infected with COVID-19: a prospective cohort study

Lead Investigator: Hajira Dambha-Miller
Duration:
May 2020-September 2020
Funder: NIHR School for Primary Care Research
CONTACT for the study: Hajira Dambha-Miller

Drug therapies that can up or downregulate ACE2 receptors in COVID-19 infection: A systematic review

Lead Investigator: Hajira Dambha-Miller
Duration
: April 2020-November 2020
Contact for the study: Hajira Dambha-Miller 

Quantifying the association between COVID-19, ethnicity and mortality: A cohort study across three UK national databases

Lead Investigator: Hajira Dambha-Miller
Duration:
July 2020-June 2021
Funder:
Medical Research Council
Contact for the study: Hajira Dambha-Miller

Retrospective Survey of Prevention, Treatment, Occurrence and Outcomes of Covid-19 in the community (RTO-Covid-19)

Lead Investigator: Dr Merlin Willcox
Duration:
July 2020-March 2021
Funding:
School for Primary Care Research, NIHR, Anntenna Foundation, Switzerland
Contact for the study: Dr Merlin Willcox
Survey link.

CERAbTc-19 (Clinical Evaluation of Rapid Antibody Test for Covid-19)

Lead Investigator: Merlin Willcox (Chief Investigator: Michael Moore)
Duration:
May 2020-July 2020
Contact for the study: Merlin Willcox

CERrnaTc-19 (Clinical Evaluation of Rapid RNA Test for Covid-19)

Local Investigators:
Professor Michael Moore (Chief Investigator)
Dr Merlin Willcox, PPM, University of Southampton
Prof Paul Little, PPM, University of Southampton
Prof Nick Francis, PPM, University of Southampton
Funder: This Study is not externally funded. The rapid RNA tests will be provided free of charge by the University of Oxford. The microbiology laboratory at Watford General Hospital will conduct these tests alongside the routine PCR tests and West Hertfordshire NHS Trust will cover the costs of laboratory technician time.  SCTU core funding (NIHR) will cover the involvement of the study manager and statistician.
Duration: 3 months  End date 31st July 2020
Contact: M.L.Willcox@soton.ac.uk 

A digital behaviour change intervention to help reduce the spread of the COVID-19 outbreak: A rapid co-design, implementation and evaluation project (GERMDEFENCE).

Lead Investigator: Lucy Yardley
Duration: March 2020-May 2021
Funding: UK Research and Innovation
For more information visit: Germ Defence website 

News and Publications

Hajira Dambha-Miller
News story - Quantifying the association between COVID-19, ethnicity and mortality: A cohort study across three UK national databases, covered by the BBC news. July 2020.

SouthMasks, a project for the community, by the community.
Tammy Thomas
Chair and Founder member of the SouthMasks Group mobilised a large group of sewing volunteers across the community. This project was funded by the Wessex Academic Health Sciences Centre thanks to a proposal submitted by Professor Roxanne Carare. Since launching in May the SouthMasks CV19 Support Group has processed over 2,400 orders for face masks and other personal equipment, fulfilling requests from across Southampton as well as hospitals in Middlesex, Chichester and Salisbury. Read more here. 

Felicity Bishop, Hazel Everitt
TIP Study - Participants wanted for on-line research exploring doctors' communication with patients during lockdown.
Felicity Bishops' Radio Solent interview 4 June 2020 can be listened to here

Nick Francis 
COVID trial at Home
COVID19 drugs trial led by Prof Tom Wilkinson is to expand to test patients in the home setting, see Prof Nick Francis on BBC South News report here and the University of Southampton news stories 26 May23 June and 20 July. The trial's results were covered extensively by the media including outlets such as BBC News OnlineThe Metro, Telegraph and Bloomberg news.

BMJ Editorial
Professor Paul Little has written an Editorial discussing the possible risks of non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs for COVID-19 symptoms.


Germ Defence receives COVID-19 priority funding
Germ Defence: A digital behaviour change intervention to improve infection control – available for dissemination, translation and adaptation as required

The Germ Defence team have been tasked through the UK COVID-19 funding call to rapidly update and adapt GermDefence for dissemination within the coronavirus pandemic across different languages, including Chinese, Hindi, Thai, Indonesian and Italian. We are finalising versions in German, French, Spanish, Turkish and Greek, with several other translations ongoing. Professor Paul Little, Professor Lucy Yardley.

News story regarding new BMJ publication Reducing risks from coronavirus transmission in the home - the role of the viral load. Paul Little and Lucy Yardley. 

A consensus statement on the use of primary care big data in COVID-19
A COVID-19 primary care database consortium was established in April 2020 across seven academic departments (including five within the SPCR). Collectively, its researchers have ongoing COVID-19 projects in overlapping datasets with millions of primary care records representing 30% of the UK population, that are variously linked to public health, secondary care and vital status records. The consensus agreement led by Hajira Dambha-Miller (Southampton) is aimed at facilitating transparency and rigour in methodological approaches, as well as consistency in defining and reporting cases, exposures, confounders, stratification variables and outcomes in relation to the pharmacoepidemiology of COVID-19. This will facilitate comparison, validation and pooling of research during and after the pandemic. The document is available as a pre-print on the Annals of Family Medicine COVID-19 collection website.

Resources

Dr Simon Fraser and colleagues from the Public Health group have put together a short collection of links to some key COVID-19 evidence resources.
The content is not intended to be exhaustive but rather a first place to look if you are searching for the latest evidence or reviewing the literature.

We accept no responsibility for the content or quality of any of the websites to which we are signposting, the links are correct at the time of posting 24/04/20. 

Please see the following two documents in useful downloads below

·       Royal Colleges and guidance from other bodies

·       Best starting point – useful Covid-19 resources for clinicians and researchers

Useful Downloads

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