By Sarai Rodriguez
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and viral surveillance company Helix have formed a partnership to build a pan-respiratory viral surveillance program to improve the nation’s preparedness for the next public health emergency.
“The devastating impact of COVID-19 has highlighted the critical importance of preparing for novel pathogens that may give rise to future pandemics or the next inevitable ‘Disease X,”SVP of Life Sciences and Growth at Helix, Daniel Lee said in a press release. “The CDC and Helix, working with health care systems, are leading the way to monitor viral outbreaks and improve national pandemic readiness.”
The pair will be partnering with integrated healthcare organizations HealthPartners and Washington-based healthcare system Providence to advance their effort to improve disease surveillance and outbreak response.
“As a Helix viral surveillance partner, we will help power scientific research related to answering critical questions around COVID and other respiratory diseases that will aid the ongoing response while also better preparing our nation for future public health emergencies,” chief executive of Providence Clinic Network, David Kim, MD stated.
As a part of the partnership with the CDC, the viral surveillance company received US$5 million to develop a pan-respiratory viral surveillance “early warning” program to identify and track more than 30 respiratory viral variants such as SARS-CoV-2, influenza, RSV, and rhinovirus. To develop the system, the team will use de-identified EHR data from nearly 16,000 samples utilizing the company’s proprietary Viral Sequencing Respiratory Panel.
Additionally, the programme will build public infrastructure to modernize the consent, sample selection and transfer, and data reporting process.
“Hospitals, clinics, and other health care providers continue to be on the front lines of the public health response to COVID-19 and must have information available to help us more readily prepare for future pandemics,” vice president of Primary Care, Clinic Operations and Laboratories at HealthPartners Leslie Dockan said. “As part of Helix’s multi-site viral monitoring network, it allows health systems like ours to horizon scan and study our regional data to watch for growing variant trends and more effectively manage disease risk for our communities.”
Alongside the CDC and Helix efforts, other developers have proposed approaches to public health surveillance leveraging artificial intelligence (AI).
In 2021, researchers found that an early warning system filled in gaps in infectious disease surveillance and forecasted the spread of influenza using predictive analytics.
The system was designed to provide a cost-effective early-warning system to enable quick response to outbreaks and prevent the further spread of influenza in locations without existing surveillance. It relies on data streams from various other locations, which are informed by human movement.
