Covid-19 Research Project

Covid-19 Research Project

We funded a unique research project which aimed to evaluate the prevalence of the COVID-19 infection in young people.

Little is known about how the virus is transmitted in educational environments which impacts on the decisions about when the appropriate time was to fully re-open schools and colleges.

A large part of this uncertainty stemmed from the lack of data around the way healthy teenagers unwittingly passed on the virus to other people in their community.

This research project is a collaboration between Dr Katy Fidler, Consultant Paediatrician in Infectious Diseases at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital, Dr Matthew Snape, Associate Professor of Paediatrics and Vaccinology in Oxford and Professor Adam Finn, Professor of Infectious Diseases in Bristol, with each site contributing to this work.

The team collected 1406 throat swabs from a range of 16-19-year olds as part of a meningitis study in February and March 2020, just before the Coronavirus pandemic hit the UK. These were then used to test for the virus containing COVID-19 to determine the percentage of these students who were well and showing no symptoms but were carrying the virus.

This research provides crucially important knowledge about how the virus spreads for future pandemics with similar viruses.

This findings of this research have now been published, with an acknowledgment of our support, and you can read the report here.

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