York’s NHS trust is helping provide vital information to support national Covid-19 research studies that are currently underway across the UK.
The studies cover everything from collecting DNA samples for research into finding the genes that make people more susceptible to Covid 19, to studying the records of patients for vital information that will help understand the disease.
Lydia Harris, head of research and development at York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Our staff are doing incredible work to support the Covid 19 research studies and have recruited over 100 patients so far.”
They are helping with:
- the RECOVERY trial – a drug trial where consented Covid-19 confirmed patients will be randomly allocated between several treatment arms, allowing researchers to compare different treatments to help the identify the best way to treat Covid-19 patients
- the GENOMICC study which is of vital importance in helping find the genes that cause susceptibility, which may help to prioritise treatments.
“Another study is reviewing the records of patients who come in to the Emergency Department with respiratory illness to see if we can identify ways of predicting which patients with suspected respiratory infection are at risk of developing severe illness in the future,” Lydia said.
“We’re really proud to be contributing to so many different studies for Covid-19 and we expect to be supporting even more in the next few weeks.”