Law Centre for Health and Life receives EU grant on pandemic preparedness
30 August 2022
This project is part of an EU-funded consortium called END-VOC (ENDing COVid-19 variants of concern through Cohort studies), comprising 19 partners worldwide working with large cohort studies to monitor the global development of COVID-19. The European Commission has funded the END-VOC consortium, coordinated by the University College London, with a research grant of almost 10 million euros.
Our aim is to learn how to address and overcome the legal and regulatory challenges that countries face when responding to an ever-changing global disease outbreak.
Dr. Anniek de Ruijter, Director of the Law Centre for Health and Life, explains: “The Covid-19 pandemic has spurred an unprecedented volume of scientific and medical research networks, many of which participate in the END-VOC project. In this project, we will connect and coordinate the research findings of these and other networks and link up with the global regulatory and societal responses. With this research we really hope to be better prepared for the next pandemic that will come our way.”
Dr. Katrina Perehudoff, Co-Director of the Law Centre for Health and Life, adds: “We can’t forget that how regulators communicate about the benefits, risks, and effectiveness of new vaccines shape the public’s acceptance of these vaccines, especially as new variants emerge. On top of this, regulatory approaches are different in every corner of the world."
In this project, we will look at how different regulatory decisions and communication strategies relate to vaccine hesitancy, to come up with optimal ways to promote safe vaccine use and protect public health in a global crisis.
This work package will be coordinated by dr. de Ruijter and dr. Elize Massard da Fonseca (São Paulo School of Business Administration).
The END-VOC project is a direct fruit of the UvA's Research Priority Area on Global Health & Development, working in collaboration with members of the European Global Health Research Network - a group of research centres of excellence in global health.
END-VOC: 19 partners, 28 cohorts in 23 countries, 5 key areas
The END-VOC consortium consists of 19 partners with cohorts in Europe (UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Switzerland), South America (Brazil and Peru), Africa (Mozambique, South Africa, Nigeria and 13 countries in the ANTICOV trial), Middle East (Palestine) and Asia (India, Pakistan, Philippines). By using data from 28 well-established cohorts in these countries, the three-year project will focus on five key areas: i) detect and characterise emerging viral variants; evaluate their capacity to ii) evade vaccine-induced immunity or cause reinfections, iii) escape current treatments, iv) cause Long Covid; as well as v) provide recommendations to better prepare and respond to future infectious disease outbreaks.
END-VOC Consortium members
University College London, United Kingdom (Lead)
Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Italy
Università Degli Studi Di Milano, Italy
Universitatsklinikum Heidelberg, Germany
Instituto de Salud Global de Barcelona, Spain
Institut Universitari per la Recerca a l'Atencio Primaria de Salut Jordi Gol i Gurina, Spain
Folkehelseinstituttet (Norwegian Institute of Public Health), Norway
Stichting Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (including UvA Law Centre for Health and Life), The Netherlands
Nigeria Centre for Disease Control
Universite de Geneve, Switzerland
Public Health Foundation of India
Fundaçao Oswaldo Cruz, Brazil
Laboratoire National De Santé, Luxembourg
Arab American University Palestine
Institut D’investigació En Ciencias De La Salut Germans Trias I Pujol, Spain
Dopasi Foundation, Pakistan
University of The Philippines
Centro de Investigaçao em Sañude de Manhiça, Mozambique
Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, Switzerland