Gail Carson

ISARIC

The International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium (ISARIC) is a network of networks that was established in 2011 to ensure a rapid research response to outbreaks of pandemic potential. Having experienced the 2009 pandemic, SARS, and other outbreaks, many of ISARIC’s founding investigators acknowledged the need for a multidisciplinary and global approach that would encourage preparedness and collaboration in the interpandemic period.

ISARIC has, to date, gathered 50 networks and 35 individual members globally – all of whom are directly involved with outbreak response and preparedness locally, regionally, and internationally. Our membership includes clinicians, clinical researchers, clinical trials professionals, virologists, microbiologists, geneticists, epidemiologists and public health professionals, statisticians, and ethicists among others – active within 110 countries across resource settings.

In order to ensure preparedness and an efficient response, ISARIC activities have aimed to fulfil its main objectives, which are to: 

• develop standardised and globally accessible research tools
• set up platforms for data collection and data sharing
• establish a primed infrastructure to epidemic responses
• enable research in resource poor settings

Since setting up, ISARIC has had the opportunity to implement these objectives in preparedness for and during outbreaks, such as for MERS-CoV, the West African Ebola outbreak, and currently in response to ZIKV.