SEATTLE — It’s cold and flu season. RSV is also prevalent. Bird flu is making a comeback.
Throughout it all, experts are taking certain steps to ensure we’re ready in the event of another global pandemic.
UW Medicine is currently conducting a five-year study that will monitor and help us learn more about the spread of COVID-19, RSV, and other respiratory-related illnesses.
“The whole point of this is to be ready for a new virus so that when it does arrive, which it probably will because we are one of the main points of entry into the United States, then we’d be able to rapidly identify how it’s spreading and contain its spread,” says Dr. Helen Chu, Professor of Medicine at UW Medicine.
Chu is leading “The Seattle Pandemic Preparedness Cohort” (also known as “SeaPrep” for short), which is partially funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
It features two distinct components. One is a study of 2,000 adults and children in the Seattle area, where participants are asked to fill out weekly surveys monitoring their respiratory symptoms.
The other, a separate study enlisting 150 households (with confirmed viral infections) to understand how a virus spreads through the home.
“So, the idea is that once we identify a virus, we would sequence it. So, we would understand what mutations already exist and then we would monitor that over time,” asserts Chu.
We’ve seen research like this around the city before, including the “Seattle Flu Study” back in 2019. That data broke down how pathogens enter a city, transfer from person to person, and even mutate over time.
However, that was just before the global pandemic.
“With COVID, you know, we weren’t really ready. And so, building all of that up while the pandemic was happening was difficult,” Chu recollects. “I think the attempt here is to put something in place ahead of time.”
Researchers will test for 26 different respiratory pathogens. For illnesses of interest (like SARS and RSV), the goal is to break down the strains behind the infections to help ID new variants.
“Of course, this really helps when we think about designing vaccines,” notes Chu.
Obviously, COVID-19 threw everyone for a loop, including scientists. And, if you ask experts, the next global illness is inevitable.
But, this CDC-funded study hopes to diagnose and predict the spread of new viruses to answer questions in real time. Instead of grappling with the response, like we saw in 2020.
However, the study isn’t limited to the Pacific Northwest. The UW Medicine site is also part of the newly established “Community and Household Acute Respiratory Illness Monitoring” Network (or “CHARM”) with two other sites.
One at the University of California, San Diego. The other is at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. And, the three locations are in constant communication, providing infrastructure and consistency across the country.
Research from coast to coast could help us get ahead of the next global illness. Because according to Dr. Chu, it’s only a matter of when (not if) the next pandemic arrives.
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