MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis
Lead Research Organisation: Imperial College London
Department Name: School of Public Health
A key feature of the Centre is the close links it has made with with public health agencies - such as the Public Health England, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US (CDC), and the World Health Organization (WHO) - organisations which have to formulate and implement strategies to control infectious diseases...
Senior scientists in the Centre are world-leaders in infectious disease modelling and analysis...
Funding provided by MRC and Imperial College has allowed dedicated investment into the development of close collaborative partnerships with PHE, CDC and WHO and governments and research centres in many low and middle income countries (LMICs). We also work closely with other important organisations who work on improving health in LMICs (notably the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Global Fund and Gavi)...
Our relationship with BMGF (Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation) is of particular strategic importance - it is both the largest funder of Centre research, but more importantly is a key stakeholder in global health decision-making.
Indeed, in times of crisis, we embed our staff in some of those key organisations. Recently, one of our researchers joined a WHO field mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo to help that country respond to an outbreak of Ebola...
In addition to impact on public health, we have also been increasing our collaborations with the pharmaceutical industry, most notably with vaccine manufacturers. In the last 5 years we have worked closely with GSK and Sanofi Pasteur, helping to characterise the effectiveness of their malaria and dengue vaccines, respectively. Our work involved analysing the data those companies collected on their products during clinical trials and advising them, WHO and regulatory agencies on how their vaccines might best be used. We also work with a wide range of public-private product development partnerships developing new vaccines, drugs and vector control measures.
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FR015600%2F1
2 Apr Updated 3 Apr: Nature: Special report: The simulations driving the worlds response to COVID-19
How epidemiologists rushed to model the coronavirus pandemic.
by David Adam
(Imperial College’s Neil) Ferguson is one of the highest-profile faces in the effort to use mathematical models that predict the spread of the virus and that show how government actions could alter the course of the outbreak...
When updated data in the Imperial teams model indicated that the United Kingdoms health service would soon be overwhelmed with severe cases of COVID-19, and might face more than 500,000 deaths if the government took no action, Prime Minister Boris Johnson almost immediately announced stringent new restrictions on peoples movements. The same model suggested that, with no action, the United States might face 2.2 million deaths; it was shared with the White House and new guidance on social distancing quickly followed (see Simulation shock)
But, as he and other modellers warn, much information about how SARS-CoV-2 spreads is still unknown and must be estimated or assumed and that limits the precision of forecasts. An earlier version of the Imperial model, for instance, estimated that SARS-CoV-2 would be about as severe as influenza in necessitating the hospitalization of those infected. That turned out to be incorrect...
Were building simplified representations of reality. Models are not crystal balls, Ferguson says...
Government officials had previously talked up a theory of allowing the disease to spread while protecting the oldest in society, because large numbers of infected people would recover and provide herd immunity for the rest. But they changed their course on seeing the new figures, ordering social-distancing measures...
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01003-6
sue Imperial College?