Think that colds and flu are easy to catch, hard to avoid and impossible to treat? That nobody ever dies of a cold? That's all wrong, say the medics and scientists at a new research centre which launches today (Monday 2 June).
Research into respiratory infections is an urgent priority, they argue. Colds can be a very serious problem for the elderly, babies, and patients with lung disease. History suggests a major flu pandemic is overdue and drug resistant tuberculosis and other 'superbugs' are on the rise.
The new Centre for Respiratory Infection at Imperial College London aims to tackle these issues. It is funded by a £3.4 million award from the Wellcome Trust and will bring together more than 200 scientists to work on a range of problems - how common cold viruses cause disease and affect long-term health, how to make better vaccines to prevent lung infections, and how to diagnose TB more accurately. The centre will also be ready to spring into action if there is a new outbreak of pandemic flu such as a mutated form of bird flu, or SARS.
Professor Peter Openshaw, the Director of the new centre from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, said: "Respiratory disease has never been as well funded as it deserves to be, considering the impact it has on health. Respiratory infections are at the root of many of the diseases that we treat every day. This new initiative is a great opportunity to get something done. We have a lot of very talented groups working on different aspects of lung infections, and bringing them together with solid shared support will help them work on common goals, to the great benefit of patients".
Examples of problems which the centre will tackle include:
How to quickly bring a flu pandemic under control
Researchers from the new centre are establishing a clinical team that will bring doctors and researchers together to bring a future flu pandemic under control quickly and effectively.
If an outbreak of pandemic flu strikes, doctors will only be able to get the best treatments to patients if they can first analyse the flu strain and find out which therapies are going to work. However, planning and setting up the necessary trials to obtain this information would usually take months.
The new centre will put plans in place in advance, so that researchers can get to work before the epidemic spreads too widely and so that doctors working on the ground are fully prepared.