The Spanish Official State Bolletin of March 18, 2020 published the Royal Decree-Law establishing measures to support research on COVID-19, including the authorization of an extraordinary credit for direct grants for research projects and programs of the COVID-19.
The Carlos III Heath Institute (ISCIII) calls for the presentation of expressions of interest to promote knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 and the CoVid disease19, as well as its impact on infected people. The aim of the proposals shall be to contribute to an efficient treatment of patient and / or public health rresponse. Proposals must be appropriate to the emergency situation and, therefore, allow immediate implementation and start-up in the National Health System, with concrete, early results applicable to the current situation. These proposals may be based on currently existing activities.
The scope of these proposals shall be:
a) Rapid virological diagnostic techniques of COVID-19, industrially scalable and applicable to healthcare, with priority orientation towards the diagnosis of the early stages of infection in humans and that allow predicting severity for the purpose of healthcare stratification.
b) Clinical-biological-molecular characterization of the COVID-19 disease, stages, prognostic stratification and complications.
c) Development of innovative therapies, new antiviral, antiseptic and disinfectant molecules against SARS-CoV-2. Antiviral resistance studies. Effectiveness of non-pharmacological, prophylactic and therapeutic interventions.
d) Characterization of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, knowledge of the genetic and antigenic variation of SARS-CoV-2 as well as the immunological response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the virus-host interaction.
e) Vaccine development, efficacy and applicability.
f) Epidemiological surveillance of COVID-19 and molecular epidemiology: incidence of mortality and morbidity. Environmental and social factors of the spread. Risk factors and population dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
g) Socio-economic impact of COVID-19. Use of primary care resources, general hospital resources, and critical care resources.
h) Artificial intelligence and massive analysis of integrated data oriented to the epidemiological control of the disease COVID-19.
Applicants must take into account that the proposals financed under this expression of interest must comply with the provisions of the corresponding concession resolution, without prejudice to the additional measures that may be incorporated in order to guarantee the early execution of the projects, open access. to data and obtaining useful results for the immediate fight against this disease.
More information and expression of interest form here