MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis

MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis
Founded atImperial College London, Faculty of Medicine
HeadquartersLondon, England
Websitewww.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/
Formerly called
MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling

The MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis is a Medical Research Council funded research centre at Imperial College London and a WHO collaborating centre. It is part of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at School of Public Health within the Imperial College Faculty of Medicine.[1][2] Neil Ferguson is the director of the centre, along with four associate directors: Christl Donnelly, Azra Ghani, Nicholas Grassly, and Timothy Hallett.[3][4] The centre also collaborates UK Health Protection Agency, and the US Centre for Disease Control.[5] The centre's main research areas are disease outbreak analysis and modelling, vaccines, global health analytics, antimicrobial resistance, and developing methods and tools for studying these areas.[6]

History

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The centre was previously called the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling.[7] It has also been referred to as the MRC Center for Outbreak Analysis and Modeling[8] Its founding was confirmed in March 2007, with Imperial College London hosting the center with funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC).[9]

In 2016, Neil Ferguson was serving as director of the MRC Center for Outbreak Analysis and Modeling.[10] That year he was lead author on a paper concerning Zika. Published in Science, Ferguson's research suggested the outbreak in South America was undergoing a sharp decline, and would "burn itself out" within a year or 18 months.[11] In 2016, Ferguson published a study in September 2016 raising concerns that wrong implementation of the newly licensed dengue virus vaccine Dengvaxia could increase the number of cases of the disease.[10]

COVID-19 pandemic response

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See also: COVID-19 pandemic

The centre—together with the Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics—formed the COVID-19 Response Team in respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.[12][13] On 16 March 2020 the team produced a research forecast of various scenarios for spread of the disease in the United Kingdom and the United States. Without any mitigation their forecast showed local health care capabilities vastly overwhelmed by the epidemic wave. Periodic cycles of quarantine followed by softer social distancing were recommended, with quarantines in effect two thirds of the time.[14] On 30 March, a study on 11 European countries was published.[15] It provided estimates of the situation as of 28 March (observed and modelised with CovidSim), and projections for 31 March given current expectations, no action, and the difference. It also provided a list of government policies and their respective absolute dates.[15] As of March 2021, the COVID-19 Response Team has produced 43 reports.[16]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Medical Research Council, M. R. C. (3 July 2020). "MRC Response to Covid-19". mrc.ukri.org. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  2. ^ Landler, Mark; Castle, Stephen (17 March 2020). "Behind the Virus Report That Jarred the U.S. and the U.K. to Action". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
  3. ^ "Governance". Imperial College London. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  4. ^ Adam, David (2020). "Special report: The simulations driving the world's response to COVID-19". Nature. 580 (7803): 316–318. Bibcode:2020Natur.580..316A. doi:10.1038/d41586-020-01003-6. PMID 32242115.
  5. ^ UKRI. "GtR". gtr.ukri.org. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  6. ^ "MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis". Imperial College London. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
  7. ^ "About us". Imperial College London. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  8. ^ "Proposed cuts in foreign aid could cause malaria resurgence", Reuters, 30 November 2017{{citation}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
  9. ^ "Imperial plans for H5N1", Times Higher Education, 9 March 2007{{citation}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
  10. ^ a b "New dengue vaccine could instead cause more cases, experts warn", CNN, 1 September 2016{{citation}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
  11. ^ "Could the Zika threat in Latin America be over in 1-2 years?", Stat News, 14 July 2016{{citation}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
  12. ^ "The global impact of Imperial's COVID-19 Response Team | Imperial News | Imperial College London". Imperial News. 11 August 2020. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
  13. ^ Wilson, Deborah Evanson, Joanna. "COVID-19: six months on the frontline (An Imperial Story)". www.imperial.ac.uk. Retrieved 18 November 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. ^ Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team (16 March 2020). "Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID19 mortality and healthcare demand" (PDF).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  15. ^ a b Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team (30 March 2020). "Estimating the number of infections and the impact of nonpharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in 11 European countries" (PDF). p. 35.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  16. ^ "COVID-19 reports". Imperial College London. Retrieved 5 April 2021.


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