A new EU-wide follow-up project was launched with the help of EATRIS Luxembourg node members, to further evaluate the COVID-19 situation in Luxembourg.
In April 2020, the CON-VINCE project was launched to capture the COVID-19 spread in Luxembourg. Now, in the footsteps of its predecessor, ORCHESTRA Luxembourg builds on this work to follow the immune response to COVID-19 vaccination over time and to provide evidence for the prevention and treatment of infections caused by SARS-CoV-2.
Led by the Research Luxembourg COVID-19 Taskforce, the CON-VINCE project assessed the prevalence and dynamics of the COVID-19 spread within the Luxembourgish population over more than 12 months. CON-VINCE was officially launched at the beginning of April 2020 and rapidly recruited more than 1800 participants. Based on the volunteers’ samples, the CON-VINCE project provided essential data about many aspects of the pandemic in Luxembourg to scientists all over Europe. These included the progression of the infection while confinement measures were in place and the evolution of antibodies in the population following SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination. Furthermore, the information collected during the study will continue to help answer questions on immune response, infection pathways, genetic predisposition, mental well-being and the socio-economic impact of COVID-19.
Building on the data and information acquired from CON-VINCE, the European ORCHESTRA (Connecting European Cohorts to Increase Common and Effective Response to SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic) project was launched with the aim to further evaluate the long-term consequences of COVID-19 in the general population, with a focus on post-vaccination monitoring of participants, and the mid-to-long-term psychosocial impact of the pandemic on Luxembourg residents.
Participants of the CON-VINCE study are exclusively invited to join ORCHESTRA Luxembourg and to continue their journey to advance research on the pandemic. These volunteers have the opportunity to complete specific questionnaires and provide dried blood spot samples, as well as optional stool samples, four times over the course of 24 months via easy-to-use collection kits delivered at home.
Read the article in full and the comment from Prof. Rejko Krüger, Principal Investigator of ORCHESTRA Luxembourg and Director of Luxembourg Transversal Translational Medicine (TTM) at LIH, an EATRIS member institution here on the Luxembourg Institute of Health blog.
ORCHESTRA Luxembourg is part of the pan-European ORCHESTRA consortium, involving 26 partners from 15 countries, which is funded under the European Commission Horizon 2020 “ERAvsCORONA Action Plan” in 2020.
