Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its disease, COVID-19, have caused unprecedented disruption globally since they were first described in China in December 2019. The OUCRU programme has felt the full force of that disruption, with severe lockdowns and waves of infection experienced repeatedly over the last 24 months in Viet Nam, Indonesia and Nepal. However, alongside the disruption has come opportunity, particularly the opportunity to conduct research that helps us understand the medical and social impact of the pandemic and improve the ways we control and treat the virus.

The entire OUCRU programme should be enormously proud of the way it has responded to the pandemic. The virus has brought us together. We have supported one another through many difficult periods when the virus seemed to threaten every aspect of our life and work, and we have found new ways to communicate and collaborate. The consequent research has been remarkable, not least because its conception and conduct has been in some of the most difficult circumstances any of us have ever experienced. We have addressed almost every important aspect of the pandemic, from its societal impact to viral genomic surveillance and COVID-19 therapy. Our work has fostered new collaborations with respective governments and their institutions that have ensured our research is relevant and impactful. These collaborations will have a lasting effect on OUCRU’s standing and future work within the region.

As we update OUCRU’s COVID-19 response in these pages, much has changed in the last 6 months. The large and devastating waves of the Delta variant have passed, but the Omicron variant is now on the ascendency in Asia. The problems this new variant will cause will be dependent upon the levels of population immunity that it confronts. There are grounds for cautious optimism: Indonesia is well-vaccinated, and Viet Nam has gone from low to very high vaccine coverage in 6 months of extraordinary effort (with >1 million vaccines given a day at times). Nepal seems to have gone through a recent omicron wave with low numbers in hospitals and relatively few deaths. As we usher in the new lunar year of the tiger, we hope that it will be considerably better than the year of the buffalo.

Of course, none of the work described would be possible without our key partners – The Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases and the National Institute of Hygiene And Epidemiology in Hanoi, Patan Academy of Health Sciences in Nepal, the Eijkman Institute and the University of Indonesia in Indonesia, and the University of Oxford, UK – and without the support from our funders, in particular the Wellcome Trust.

Professor Guy Thwaites
Director 
Viet Nam Wellcome Africa Asia Programme
Oxford University Clinical Research Unit
Professor of Infectious Diseases, University of Oxford

Below is a list of Covid-19-related projects carried out from July 2020 – February 2022:

Randomised Controlled Trials

• The RECOVERY Trial – A Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy
• The COPCOV Study
• Evaluation of awake prone positioning effectiveness in moderate to severe COVID-19 (Awake Prone Study)
• A Randomised, Double-Blinded, Positive Controlled Phase IIb Clinical Trial to Evaluate the Immunogenicity and Safety of COVID-19 Vaccine (Vero Cell), Inactivated Booster Dose in Adults who have completed two doses of CoronaVac  or VaxzevriaTM in Indonesia (PRO-nCOV-2006)

Observational Clinical Studies

• Prediction of respiratory failure in COVID-19 infection and understanding pathophysiological mechanisms
• ISARIC Study: The natural history of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Viet Nam
• Clinical characteristics, management and disease outcomes of COVID-19 patients in Indonesia
• The impact of Covid-19 on pregnancy care and outcomes (CovPreg)
• The impact of maternal COVID-19 on newborn health, immunity, and development (CovNeo)
• Real-world assessment of the immunogenicity and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in Indonesia (INVITE Study)
• Advanced analytics of Covid-19 patient data to better define infection and outcomes  
• Clinical epidemiology of paediatric COVID-19 Delta variant cases from North Sumatra, Indonesia
• Clinical characteristics and mortality associated with COVID-19 in Jakarta, Indonesia: A hospital-based retrospective cohort study
• The clinical features, epidemiology, immunology and host genetics associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection in children and adults in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

Diagnostic & Laboratory Studies

• Validation of SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis with RT-LAMP on FTA filter paper for remote sites in Indonesia
• Establishing the Southeast Asia Serological Surveillance Network (SASSNet) in Indonesia & Viet Nam
• Establishing a hospital-based nationwide sero-surveillance system in Viet Nam
• Consortium for Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 Sequence and Structure in LMICs
• Immunogenicity and safety of COVID-19 vaccine in Vietnamese healthcare workers
• Enhancing the utility of SARS-CoV-2 antibody rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for disease surveillance

Epidemiology & Modelling Studies

• Tracking all-cause mortality at the epicentre of Indonesia’s COVID-19 epidemic (TREMOR)
• Impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on HIV, tuberculosis and childhood vaccination programmes, and policy and health system factors fostering programme resilience (COHERE)
• Pandemic inequity in a megacity: a multilevel analysis of individual, community and health care vulnerability risks for COVID-19 mortality in Jakarta, Indonesia
• Natural history of SARS-CoV-2 in comparison to influenza A virus
• Strengthening Preparedness in the Asia-Pacific Region through Knowledge – SPARK
• Covid-19 ICU burden
• A web-based application on contact tracing questionnaire
• Characterising the distribution of incubation time and latency time 
• The probability to remain asymptomatic and its dependence on age, sex and the presence of comorbidities 
• Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on vaccine uptake in Vietnam
• Optimising the timing of the second dose of vaccine shot
• Evaluating mortality data to capture the dynamics of COVID-19 in Java, Indonesia
• Mortality among healthcare workers in Indonesia during 18 months of COVID-19
• Optimising use of routine surveillance data to investigate vaccine effectiveness on covid-19 severity and mortality in adults diagnosed with COVID-19 in Jakarta, Indonesia: a retrospective cohort study

Social Science Studies

• COVID-19 Social Science and Public Engagement Action Research in Viet Nam, Indonesia and Nepal (SPEAR)

Public & Community Engagement

• Public and community engagement response to Covid-19
• Combating Covid-19-related disinformation and fake news

Policy Engagement 

• Covid-19 and the gendered research gap
• Engaging with policymakers in the COVID-19 pandemic through an Outbreak Advisory Board
• Summary of Covid-19 press outputs
  

To download PDF versions please click on the link below:

For English: COVID-19 Portfolio (Updated February 2022)
For Vietnamese: Danh mục các dự án về COVID-19 (Cập nhật tháng 2-2022)

A summary of Vietnamese government regulations about COVID-19: MoH covid related documents