EuCARE Project funded by EU

Coordinated by Euresist Network, 23 primary universities, hospitals and ICT research centers are collaborating over five years to provide robust, data driven evidence to deal with SARS-CoV-2 variants and COVID-19 epidemics. 

How do SARS-COV-2 variants, coupled with other factors, influence the clinical course of COVID-19? Is there any vaccine or test escape related to variants? Do variants influence, and how, the spread in the school setting? Can we define a better testing and containment strategy in the school setting? What is the impact of containment measures, including schools closure, on pupils and teachers?

With the support of strong immuno-virological and artificial intelligence components, the study will take advantage of large hospital patients, vaccinated healthcare workers and schools’ cohorts in Europe, Kenya, Mexico, Russia and Vietnam to find an answer to urgent issues related to science and society.

• to study viral variants in relation to their capacity to escape control by available vaccines; 

•  to study viral variants in relation to their capacity to escape diagnosis by available tests;

• to study the host immune response to different variants, in terms of both antibody and cellular immunity; and to evaluate possible cross-immunization with other coronaviruses;

• to assess the role of the different viral variants in response to treatment interventions and in disease progression, including long-term outcome, and to identify predictors of patients at higher risk;

• to determine the prevalence of viral variants, their attack rates and clusters in schools compared with the general population; 

• to determine the prevalence of viral variants, their attack rates and clusters in schools compared with the general population; 

• to compare the efficacy of different screening methods and of different preventive measures in schools with respect to new viral variants; in particular, an emerging pooled saliva screening method will be evaluated;

• to evaluate the psychological and learning-loss effect of the school closure during the pandemic.

WP1 data and cohorts infrastructure of the project, including the legal, ethical and IT frameworks;

WP2 on wet-lab activities as a service for the cohort WPs and to virological and immunological studies;

WP3 runs the cohort study on patients, including long COVID patients, and Health Care Workers;

WP4 runs the other cohort study on schools and kindergartens; 

WP5 applies artificial intelligence techniques on the data produced by previous WPs;

WP6 implements consortium level dissemination and communication activities and networking for long-term sustainability of the project’s cohorts and network;

WP7 is for the management, project evaluation and quality assurance activities;

WP8 ensures compliance with ethics requirements set by the ethics project review.

Rolf Kaiser from the Laboratory of Viral Resistance Research at University of Cologne Medical Center is leading WP4. For its focus on schools, the work package builds on the ongoing school screening program in Germany and in Mexico, adding to these newly enrolled schools in Portugal and Italy, spanning all school grades. The test procedure will be the Lolli method, which employs common-use swabs for sample collection and a pooling approach sample analysis. The Lolli method has been invented by the Institute of Virology at the University of Cologne Medical Center and is already in wide-spread use in our home state of Northrhine-Westphalia and beyond. Overall, at least 35 schools and 40 kindergartens will be involved comprising more than 26.000 students across all ages, from very diverse areas in terms of urbanization, socioeconomic status, containment protocols and use of face masks.

Detailed information on the entire project can be found at https://www.euresist.org/eucare