An international study will be launched in ten European countries, including France, in order to better understand monkeypox and assess the impact of the care of patients affected by this disease, the ANRS (Agence Française de research on AIDS and viral hepatitis). “The implementation of this international observational study will allow us to acquire new knowledge essential for the advancement of research on monkeypox and the treatments available”, declared Professor Yazdan Yazdanpanah, Director of ANRS-Maladies emerging infectious diseases, quoted in a press release.
“It is urgent that we better understand this disease”
Entitled Mosaic, the study builds on ongoing work in the Central African Republic aimed at better characterizing the disease in countries where recent spread has been reported. Patients from the ten participating countries – UK, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Spain – will provide information to the study team about their symptoms and responses to treatments . They will also be monitored to observe the speed of their recovery or the development of any complications.
“There is an urgent need for us to better understand this neglected disease,” said Professor Xavier Lescure, from the infectious diseases department of Bichat Hospital – Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris and Paris Cité University, which is coordinating the study in the countries. Europeans. “I am delighted that in the space of just a few weeks a study has been launched in Europe,” said Professor Piero Olliaro of the University of Oxford and researcher responsible for the study, also quoted in the press release
The study is partly supported by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Wellcome and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The first patients have already been recruited from the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG) in Switzerland. In France, the first patients will be included soon. The head of the WHO reaffirmed his concern last Wednesday at the outbreak of monkeypox and announced that he would convene the Emergency Committee, which must help him to judge the seriousness of the crisis at the latest week. of July 18.