High recruitment in the North East and North Cumbria for MERMAIDS-ARI
The North East and North Cumbria has recruited a significant number of participants to the Multi-centre EuRopean study of MAjor Infectious Disease Syndromes: Acute Respiratory Infections in Adults (MERMAIDS-ARI) study.
MERMAIDS-ARI aims to find out why some people become much more ill than others when they have acute respiratory infections.
People at general risk of developing severe disease include the elderly, people with long term lung or heart disease, and patients with a weak immune system. However, some respiratory infections can also cause severe disease in younger, previously healthy people due to a combination of the virus itself and the person’s immune responses.
More information about how different people respond to the agents that cause respiratory disease will allow researchers to better predict how bad the infection is likely to be and to develop treatments specific to particular patients.
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead, Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital, and South Tyneside District Hospital are among the most successful sites in terms of participant recruitment. Gateshead and Northumbria achieved such high figures that they were approached by the national MERMAIDS study team to share best practice in the hope that it would boost recruitment at all sites.
Dr Maria Bokhari, research lead for the MERMAIDS trial at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead, attributed their success to teamwork: “We are pleased that MERMAIDS has been such a success. As we are in the midst of a pandemic, there are many challenges our research team has had to face. The strength of our team has shone through by being more innovative and ensuring that recruitment to trials is prioritised.
“We work embedded within the clinical teams, which is advantageous as they signpost us to potential participants. We have a close relationship with the phlebotomists and the point of care team has been incredibly flexible in receiving and processing samples. It is also important that we establish a good rapport with the participants, as some are in-patients for more than 28 days. Working collaboratively has made this trial a success.”
The research team at Queen Elizabeth Hospital start their day by checking whether there are any new admissions who may be eligible for the study. If there are, the research team works efficiently to approach, consent and screen the potential participants while keeping the clinical team informed throughout. Various members of the research team work together to support data collection and to ensure that data is uploaded in a timely manner.
Professor Caroline Wroe, Clinical Director for NIHR Clinical Research Network North East and North Cumbria said: “The North East and North Cumbria has done exceedingly well in recruiting so many participants for MERMAIDS. We are very proud of the efforts of research teams across the region and I am delighted that Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s collaborative approach has yielded such brilliant results. I would like to thank all the staff who have contributed to this study so far as well as the participants.”
MERMAIDS-ARI is classed as a COVID-19 Urgent Public Health study, research which is being prioritised to inform national policy and to enable new diagnostic tests, treatments and vaccines to be developed for COVID-19. A full list of Urgent Public Health studies can be found here: nihr.ac.uk/covid-studies/.
The study is also part of the Platform for European Preparedness Against (Re-)emerging Epidemics (PREPARE) research, a European network set up to improve research about infectious diseases across Europe. The overall aim is to improve European preparedness for emerging infections and to undertake research into the care and treatment of these infections. For more information visit prepare-europe.eu.
