Wellcome pledges £10 million to tackle novel coronavirus epidemic
Wellcome is making a pledge of up to £10 million to accelerate research and support global efforts to tackle the ongoing novel coronavirus epidemic.
Credit: Robert Wei / iStock
Wellcome is making a pledge of up to £10 million to accelerate research and support global efforts to tackle the ongoing novel coronavirus epidemic.
Credit: Robert Wei / iStock
Dr Jeremy Farrar, Director of Wellcome, said: “This virus is spreading at unprecedented scale with cases passing between people in multiple countries across the world. We know this is going to be challenging to control, but many unknowns and uncertainties remain.
“Accelerating research to build knowledge and inform the global response is critical to protecting health, saving lives and ending this epidemic. Wellcome is pledging up to £10m to support urgently needed research.
“We need to understand how the virus spreads, who is most at risk and what the most effective public health measures are, as well as developing diagnostics, treatments and vaccines. These must be available to everyone.
“Wellcome is partnering with researchers, other funders, governments (including the UK government), the World Health Organization and many others working tirelessly on the epidemic response, to understand where our support will be best placed and to ensure an equitable approach.
“The epidemic will challenge the best-resourced countries but will have a disproportionate impact on fragile health systems in low- and middle-income countries.
“This has been declared an international emergency. We must take the threat posed by the virus very seriously and work together as an international community to ensure no one is left behind.”
Wellcome and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) have an existing partnership through the Joint Initiative on Research in Epidemic Preparedness and Response to help low- and middle-income countries prepare for and tackle epidemics.
We will publish more information about this funding and the research areas it will support in the coming days.
For general enquiries contact epidemics@wellcome.ac.uk. For media enquiries contact mediaoffice@wellcome.ac.uk.