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UW study aims to spot the next pandemic before it spreads

Jean Mernaugh, a research technologist in Dr. Helen Chu's lab at UW Medicine, shows a test tube from the home kits they plan to distribute to about 3,000 people for the SeaPrep study.
Gabriel Spitzer
/
KNKX
Jean Mernaugh, a research technologist in Dr. Helen Chu's lab at UW Medicine, shows a test tube from the home kits they plan to distribute to about 3,000 people for the SeaPrep study.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the virus was probably spreading in the community well before the threat was identified.

University of Washington researchers say they want to be better prepared for the next pandemic, and are launching a multiyear study that could provide advance warning of disease outbreaks.

The Seattle Pandemic Preparedness Cohort study, or SeaPrep, is designed to give a real-time snapshot of which respiratory viruses are out there and how they are evolving and spreading. If a new pathogen appears, or a virus of concern such as the highly-pathogenic H5N1 avian flu turns up, researchers hope this study will catch it.

Researchers plan to enroll about 3,000 people, who will use at-home kits to take nasal swabs and blood samples whenever they feel sick.

The UW team then analyzes the samples in hopes of detecting any new pathogens and learning more about how respiratory viruses work.

Public health authorities typically do disease surveillance by looking at data from admissions to hospitals and clinics. But Dr. Helen Chu, professor of infectious diseases at UW Medicine, said that method could potentially miss red flags because it doesn’t capture people who don’t seek out care.

“Often it is the healthy adults and the healthy children who are the initial introducers of novel pathogens into the community. So it gives us an early ability to predict what will happen later on,” Chu said.

The new research builds on a previous project that Chu spearheaded, the Seattle Flu Study, which played a pivotal role in spotting the last pandemic. In 2020, samples collected in that study revealed the first documented community spread of COVID-19 in the United States.

Chu said that only happened because the flu study was already up and running.

A Tasso test kit for participants in the SeaPrep study to use any time they feel sick.
Gabriel Spitzer
/
KNKX
A Tasso test kit for participants in the SeaPrep study to use any time they feel sick.

“These types of studies can't be things that you stand up during a pandemic. They have to be stood up beforehand,” Chu said. “You have this entire infrastructure, which takes six months to a year to build, in place so you can analyze the data in real time and disseminate the results.”

The SeaPrep study could provide a similar early signal if a new pathogen appears. It could also help scientists learn more the basic dynamics of respiratory viruses.

“How long is somebody infectious before they are symptomatic? How long do they shed virus for? And what measures work? Masks, ventilation, cleaning?” Chu said.

“If you remember back to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was really these household studies that allowed us to understand all of the things that we now know about asymptomatic transmission.”

Chu said there are still many unanswered questions about the behavior of viruses such as RSV or hMPV, which is currently raising alarms in China.

“SARS-CoV-2 was the most intensively studied virus in history. And so for anything other than flu and COVID, we don't have this type of information,” she said.

The SeaPrep study, funded by a $25 million grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, launches this spring and will last five years.

Gabriel Spitzer is a fill-in reporter, producer and host who previously covered science and health and worked on the KNKX show Sound Effect.