COVID-19 National DiagnOstic Research and Evaluation Platform (CONDOR)

我们应对新冠肺炎疫情的一个关键环节是准确查明谁被感染了。当患者第一次被发现时，得到快速的回答可以确保我们能够提供最好的护理，减少其他人感染的机会。在社区环境中，我们可以采取措施隔离感染者并追踪他们的接触者。公司正在开发新的测试方法，既可以检测SARS-CoV-2(导致新冠肺炎的病毒)，也可以确定是否有人已经对该病毒具有免疫力。至关重要的是，这些检测不会漏掉感染，也不会漏掉人们是否真的免疫。我们需要一些方法来快速评估这些新的测试是否足够准确，可以用于NHS。要做到这一点，我们需要知道测试在不同的环境中是如何工作的，包括社区、医院和疗养院，我们必须使用高质量的方法来评估它们。我们将建立一个全国性的诊断测试评估专家网络，以评估这些新测试的准确性。我们将通过与政府机构合作，优先考虑可能在患者护理方面做出最大改善的测试。我们将邀请患者参加，如果他们有可能是由新冠肺炎引起的症状。我们将从鼻子/喉咙采集血液样本和拭子，并将新测试的结果与成熟的诊断新冠肺炎的方法的结果进行比较。这将允许我们找出在NHS中使用哪些测试是最好的。

A key part of our response to the COVID-19 pandemic is to accurately find out who is infected. Getting rapid answers when patients are first seen ensures that we can give the best care, reducing the chance of others catching the infection. In community settings, we can take steps to isolate infected people and trace their contacts. Companies are developing new tests both to detect SARS-CoV-2 (the virus causing COVID-19) and to find out if someone is already immune to the virus. It is crucial that these tests do not miss infections, or whether people really are immune. We need ways torapidly assess whether these new tests are accurate enough to be used in the NHS. Todo this we need to know how tests work in different settings, including the community,hospitals and care homes, and we must use high quality methods to evaluate them.We will set up a national network of experts in evaluating diagnostic tests to assess theaccuracy of these new tests. We will prioritise tests that are likely to give the bestimprovements in patient care by working with government bodies. We will ask patients totake part if they have symptoms that could have been caused by COVID-19. We will takeblood samples and swabs from the nose/throat, and we will compare the results of newtests to the results of proven methods to diagnose COVID-19. This will allow us to find outwhich tests are best to use in the NHS.