Respiratory Tract Infections Clinical Trials in United Kingdom

Current virus detection methods often take significant time or can be limited in sensitivity, specificity or cost. There is therefore a need for diagnostic methods that are simple to use, sensitive, rapid and inexpensive. This is a proof of concept study to determine whether the Pictura Bio system (a new a rapid pathogen identification technology) is able to detect and differentiate different viruses from nasopharyngeal swabs/aspirate specimens. The data collected will be used to "train" the algorithms to be able to accurately identify respiratory viruses. The accuracy with which the algorithms estimate the test dataset will be monitored at regular intervals during the training dataset collection period. The Pictura Bio system is still under development, which means that it is still "learning". The system needs to see more information so that it can be sufficiently accurate to be used in clinical practice and should become more accurate in identifying these viruses as it sees more and more information from patients. This study will take place at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust and aims to recruit 1000 patients. To do this, we will recruit both adults and children who either present to the emergency department or are admitted to QAH with a clinical suspicion of a respiratory viral infection. All participants will have a nose and/or throat swab taken as part of their clinical assessment, and we would ask to take a further nasal swab for the purpose of the study. Research sampling will be combined with routine clinical samples where possible to reduce the frequency of testing. We will use most of the information to teach the system how to become more accurate at identifying respiratory viruses. We will keep the remaining information separate and use it to test how accurate the system is. All of the data will be kept securely. Basic information will be collected including age, gender, results of blood tests taken for clinical review, treatment and outcome data. No results from the swabs taken for the purpose of the study will be available to either the participant or the clinical team and the information will have no effect on patient care. Read Less

The purpose of this European, multicentric, prospective, non-interventional study is to document and evaluate the efficacy and safety of the treatment of severely infected patients with intravenously administered fosfomycin, including patients with osteomyelitis, complicated urinary tract infection, nosocomial lower respiratory tract infection, bacterial meningitis/central nervous system infection, bacteraemia/sepsis, skin and soft tissue infection, endocarditis or other infections, each as far as covered by the respective nationally relevant SmPC. Read Less

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is one of the most common causes of chest infection worldwide. Despite this, it remains an underappreciated health problem, with the first effective RSV vaccines only approved by the FDA in May 2023 and unlikely to be widely available for some time. Although RSV infection is most frequent in young children, most deaths occur in older adults, particularly in those with underlying heart and lung disease. This is believed to be due in part to the ageing immune system's reduced ability to protect against infection and symptomatic disease. However, little is known about the way human immune responses to RSV infection in older individuals differ from those of younger people. Further understanding of the mechanisms underlying immunity and potential impairments in these higher-risk people are therefore necessary. This project aims to study the factors that influence whether or not older people develop symptomatic RSV disease in healthy older volunteers after being given an RSV-induced common cold. Samples will be taken from the blood and nose in order to identify changes in the immune system associated with susceptibility or protection in older adults. Participants will be carefully screened to ensure there are no underlying health problems that might make them more at risk of severe disease and will be monitored closely throughout the course of infection. It is anticipated that differences in immune markers in the nose and/or blood of healthy older people will predict whether or not such individuals become infected or develop symptoms. By analysing the networks of genes that are switched on and off, the aim is to identify the pathways in the immune system responsible for these differences, to ultimately develop improved diagnostic tests, vaccines and treatments. Read Less