The project builds on existing and new cohorts and partners across 30 centres of excellence in Europe (Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, UK) and globally (the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Haiti, Israel, Nigeria, South Africa, Thailand, USA) and focuses on pregnant women and children, as well as adults attending sexual health clinics. The inclusion of Estonia (University of Tartu) and the DRC (University of Kinshasa) is new for this reporting period and increases the diversity and geographical representation of cohorts included in the project. Cohorts vary from large-scale country level administrative health datasets to infection-specific cohorts at the regional level. Partners come together to answer a range of key research questions on the impact of SARS-CoV-2 and mpox, providing evidence to guide public health decision-making.
Key areas of focus in VERDI for SARS-CoV-2 are the clinical outcomes of COVID-19 in pregnancy and paediatrics, transmission patterns in schools and households, and the impact of vaccination strategies. In terms of pregnancy, during the second 18 months of the project, analyses have been completed or are ongoing of the impact of maternal infection during pregnancy on pregnancy, birth and child outcomes, as well as the uptake, safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy. For paediatrics, results on the uptake, effectiveness and safety of vaccination have been published, as well as on the immune response to infection and vaccination, and outcomes of infection. Analyses of data from household transmission studies of SARS-CoV-2, with a focus on the role of children, are ongoing.
For mpox, work involves describing the clinical presentation and outcomes of infection in adults and children and understanding people’s experiences of the mpox outbreak and associated social media and public health messaging. This work has a global perspective, with cases reported from across Europe and elsewhere (including the DRC, where transmission is ongoing) and social science work being carried out in Nigeria, the UK, Italy and Thailand.
VERDI partners also carry out modelling analyses of both SARS-CoV-2 and mpox, to evaluate the impact of interventions such as vaccination and behaviour change.
