Key research areas and achievements of the Vietnam Research Programme and Oxford University Clinical Research Unit
Work at the Vietnam Programme covers patient-oriented clinical and public health research and the interface between human and animal health.
Key research areas
The Programme focuses on the following core areas:
- dengue - understanding disease pathogenesis and improving clinical management
- central nervous system infections - understanding encephalitis, tuberculosis and meningitis, and improving diagnosis and clinical care
- influenza (including H5N1 and pandemic H1N1) - understanding pathogenesis and transmission dynamics in animals and humans, and improving clinical management
- tetanus - clinical trials of new treatments, improved understanding of autonomic dysfunction and the role of nosocomial infections
- typhoid - understanding drug resistance and host susceptibility, clinical trials and vaccine development
- malaria - monitoring and understanding drug resistance in Plasmodium falciparum and vivax
- other diseases of public health importance in the region - including tuberculosis, opportunistic infections related to HIV, tuberculosis-HIV- hepatitis coinfections, diphtheria, shigellosis (dysentery), fascioliasis (liver fluke), Streptococcus suis and emerging infectious diseases.
Key achievements
The Vietnam Programme and its partners have made major contributions to research across a range of infectious diseases. These include:
Avian influenza
- Delivered the first comprehensive report detailing the clinical features of the disease.
- Generated human monoclonal antibodies effective against H5N1 - now undergoing assessment as possible therapeutic interventions.
Dengue
- Determined the host and viral factors associated with severe dengue fever.
- Improved diagnostic tests for early identification of infection.
- Published most of the randomised controlled trials aimed at improving patient care. This has led to a fall in mortality for severe dengue to under 1 per cent in Ho Chi Minh City.
Typhoid
- Demonstrated that the fluoroquinolone antibiotics are the most effective first-line treatment. This is now recommended by the World Health Organization.
- Conducted the first phase II trials of a one-dose oral typhoid vaccine in an endemic setting.
Malaria
- Played a major role in establishing the role of artemisinin derivates for the treatment of falciparum malaria.
- Helped to establish the burden of vivax malaria in South-east Asia, showing that vivax - previously considered relatively harmless - is common and can cause severe disease
Other
- Performed studies that have led to a reduction in mortality for patients with tetanus from 40 to 5 per cent
- Conducted host genetic studies and identified key mutations in innate immunity genes that appear to play a role in susceptibility to tuberculosis meningitis and typhoid in the Vietnamese population.
- Set up an international working group for studies on infectious diseases of the central nervous system, bringing together scientists who have conducted clinical trials on these diseases.
- Linked the phenomenon of antibody dependent enhancement of dengue virus infection with the age-related epidemiology of severe dengue in infants.
- Coordinated an eight-country, two-continent network on dengue.
