PREPARE WEBINARS
A series of 5 topical webinars
17 March 2021 – 14 April 2021
About the event
Many ground-breaking research studies, data analyses, reviews and surveys have been performed under the umbrella of PREPARE. To celebrate the end of PREPARE and showcase the many achievements of the project to the outside world, we are launching a series of five webinars that will be held every Wednesday at 14:00 CET from 17 March to 14 April. Topics will include the MERMAIDS trials, clinical epidemiology, diagnostics algorithms, public and patient involvement in pandemic preparedness, outcomes from the REMAP-CAP flu domain, Health Economics, and many others.
The webinar on 14 April is specifically addressed to policy makers and will highlight the work of PREPARE and RECOVER, the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, the barriers for clinical trials, and the future of clinical research in Europe.
Programme
The programme comprises sessions and keynote lectures to present PREPARE’s research data and achievements.
FIRST WEBINAR: A MERMAIDS Tale: Acute Respiratory Infections
Wednesday 17 March 2021

Moderator: Menno de Jong (AMC Amsterdam)
MERMAIDS is the Multi-centre EuRopean study of MAjor Infectious Disease Syndromes. In this webinar we will take you on a journey of exploring the reasons as to why some people with acute respiratory infections become more unwell than others. Can the expression of specific genes tell us why some people go on to develop more severe disease and is this related to other clinical features such as comorbidity and type of infection? And are clinical risk factors different in children? To our knowledge, these are the largest studies of this type ever done and for the first time, we will be presenting this data and telling this story.
SECOND WEBINAR: ARBOVIRUSES STUDIES
Wednesday 24 March 2021

Moderator : Marion Koopmans (Erasmus MC) + Corneliu Popescu (Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy)
This webinar focuses on arboviruses in Europe, presenting data from experiences of annual outbreaks of West Nile virus in Romania, and an overview of the results from the PREPARE MERMAIDS Arbovirus, seasonal observational study set in hospital sites in seven countries across southeast Europe from May 2016 to January 2020.
THIRD WEBINAR: PREPARING FOR AN INFLUENZA PANDEMIC
Wednesday 31 March 2021

Moderator: Peter Openshaw (Imperial College London)
The world has been astonished by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which we all hope to see defeated by the application of top-level science of the type promoted by the PREPARE consortium. In this session, we will provide a top-level overview of just what can be achieved in preparing for the next pandemic and just how important it is that we maintain our science base in readiness for future pandemics. We will focus on influenza, a likely cause of future pandemics, but the messages from this session have broad application in relation to other viral outbreaks. We will demonstrate the potential of human challenge studies to discover key facts about the host response to infection, the studies that are being performed to find new treatments both for mild and severe disease and, importantly, how these advances benefit from public engagement and can be made relevant policymaking.
FOURTH WEBINAR: WHY FUTURE CLINICAL TRIALS WILL BE PLATFORM TRIALS
Wednesday 7 April 2021

Moderator & co-moderator: Lennie Derde (UMC Utrecht) + Marc Bonten (UMC Utrecht)
The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way of performing clinical therapeutic research. The platform trial REMAP-CAP proved to be highly efficient and provided evidence-based guidance for treatment of patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Platforms clearly represent the future of clinical trials. In this session the beauty, complexity and results from the REMAP-CAP trial will be presented, complemented by the description of yet another new platform trial for evaluating COVID-19 treatment in primary care.
FIFTH WEBINAR: SEVEN YEARS OF PREPARE: key outcomes and the way forward
Wednesday 14 April 2021
