Overview
During the global COVID-19 pandemic, the re-use of dispersed data from multiple countries has been a critical tool for generating evidence and guiding policy. IDDO has played a key role as an international, interoperable data platform, working collaboratively across the scientific community and enabling researchers to provide rapid insight into disease pathogenesis and treatment.
In collaboration with ISARIC, IDDO has assembled the world’s largest global database on COVID-19 clinical data with over 500,000 individual patient data harmonised on a single platform. This pooled data has been used to date in over 20 individual patient data (IPD) meta-analyses which have generated unique knowledge on the natural history of COVID-19.
IDDO has developed a harmonised database to monitor the volume of globally registered COVID-19 studies. The data analyses clearly demonstrated the lack of research in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and are already being used by funders to adjust their prioritisations. This living systematic review provides an open, accessible, easy-to-use and frequently updated resource summarising the characteristics of COVID-19 clinical trial registrations.
During the pandemic, the demand for COVID-19 related medical supplies has inevitably ballooned. The high demand and related shortages of genuine products contributes to an increased global risk of substandard and falsified (SF) medical products, for COVID-19 and for many other essential medicines. IDDO is collating information and reports in the public domain on the quality of medicinal products that are currently in use, or that are being trialled for COVID-19’s prevention or treatment. IDDO’s monthly reports on SF-related COVID-19 medical products and COVID-19 vaccines are used by WHO and regulators to track this increasing global issue and provide adequate responses.
IDDO is also a founder member of an international coalition of scientists, physicians, funders, and policymakers from over 70 institutions from over 30 countries responding to COVID-19 in resource-poor settings. The COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition aims to accelerate desperately needed research in those areas where already-fragile health systems might cause the greatest health impact on at-risk populations. IDDO is also a partner in the ANTICOV clinical trial platform, launched in November 2020.
IDDO has made its COVID-19 studies discoverable on the Vivli platform to boost its reach across the global research community and increase both the speed of access and re-use of data. This new partnership will enable the streamlining of requests to access data across the two platforms.
IDDO is part of the task force established by CDISC to rapidly develop an interim COVID-19 Therapeutic Area User Guide to standardise clinical data. The guide details how data fields specific to COVID-19 will be incorporated into the CDISC standards. CDISC has also developed an annotated case record form and mapping tool to support researchers to collect high-quality data in a format that enables integration with other datasets. The tools are freely available on the CDISC website – which requires free registration.
IDDO is registered as a re3data.org repository. To stay informed with the development of the COVID-19 data platform sign up to our newsletter and for further information please contact us at: info@iddo.org