Serological tools for COVID-19 control and vaccine roll-out in Southeast Asia

目前由SARS-CoV-2病毒引起的COVID-19大流行给包括亚洲在内的全球经济和公共卫生造成了无法估量的负担。已经开发出用于检测目前和过去接触该病毒的新诊断方法，并且正在出现用于临床评估和推广的疫苗。随着病例数量趋于稳定，各国政府的退出战略将涉及使用监测和追踪接触者，以在中短期内限制未来零星暴发的损害，而理想情况下，接种疫苗将导致消除。然而，正在评估的许多检测和疫苗基于相同的生物靶点，感染控制活动将需要区分对疫苗的免疫反应和SARS-CoV-2感染引起的免疫反应，而目前的一线快速检测试剂盒尚无法实现这一点。考虑到这一点，我们建议研究由LSHTM建模、信息工具和实验室工作产生的其他免疫靶点。这些目标将在与泰国和菲律宾政府研究机构和医院的持续合作中进行评估，这两个国家在COVID-19应对中处于临床管理和感染控制的前沿。这些地点有预先存在的用于诊断和治疗的生物样本和数据，将用于拟议的项目。我们将评估新的生物靶点并建立可由这些国家实施的检测方法，以协助监测系统监测社区疫苗接种和消除SARS-CoV-2的进展。这将为疫苗推广和控制战略的方向提供重要数据。最重要的是，开发的工具可以很容易地在其他低收入和中等收入国家实施，只需最少的实验室设施。为此，我们的目标是为东南亚的COVID-19监测基础设施做出持久贡献，从而改善各国的健康和经济。

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has caused immeasurable burden on economies and public health globally, including in Asia. New diagnostics for detecting the present and past exposure to the virus have been developed, and vaccines are emerging for clinical evaluation and roll-out. As the number of cases plateau, the exit strategy of Governments will involve the use of surveillance and contact tracing to limit the damage of future sporadic outbreaks in the short to medium term, while vaccination will ideally lead to elimination. However, many of the tests and vaccines under evaluation are based on the same biological targets, and infection control activities will need to distinguish immune responses to vaccines and those elicited by SARS-CoV-2 infection, which cannot yet be achieved with current front-line rapid testing kits. With this in mind, we propose to investigate alternative immunological targets arising from LSHTM modelling, informatic tools and laboratory work. These targets will be assessed within ongoing collaborations with government research institutes and hospitals in Thailand and The Philippines, who are at the forefront of clinical management and infection control in the COVID-19 response. These sites have pre-existing biological samples and data collected for diagnosis and treatment that will be used in the proposed project. We will evaluate new biological targets and establish assays that can be implemented by these countries to assist a surveillance system to monitor the progress of vaccination and SARS-CoV-2 elimination in the community. This will provide vital data for the direction of vaccine rollout and containment strategy. Most importantly, the tools developed can be easily implemented across other LMIC countries with a minimal laboratory set-up. With this, our goal, is to make a lasting contribution to Southeast Asian COVID-19 surveillance infrastructure, thereby improving the health and economy of the nations.