The RAPIDE platform was a unique & novel platform for assessing potential treatments for Ebola virus disease. The trial design was pragmatic and aimed to achieve answers quickly and appropriately within the context of an unprecedented infectious disease. The Wellcome Trust were able to rapidly fund the study. There was a remarkable collaborative effort between the affected countries, humanitarian organisations, governments, public health agencies and National Health Staff. The study examined two potential treatments using a phase II trial: Brincidofovir was tested in Liberia and TKM-130803 was tested in Sierra Leone. Professor Horby will discuss the difficulties with running clinical trials under such challenging conditions.

More about the speaker:
Peter is a clinical academic who trained in adult medicine, infectious diseases and public health in the UK and Australia. He is Director of the Epidemic Diseases Research Group at Oxford (ERGO) where he is involved in conducting clinical and epidemiological research on epidemic and emerging infections. He has previously held positions with the UK Health Protection Agency, WHO, and was the founding Director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit at the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Hanoi, Vietnam. He has worked extensively in resource constrained settings and has led research on a range of emerging and epidemic infections, including variant CJD, SARS, H5N1, H7N9, dengue, cholera, measles, Streptococcus suis, and Hand Foot and Mouth Disease.

He is the Principal Investigator of the Wellcome Trust funded platform for evaluating experimental therapeutics for Ebola – Rapid Assessment of Potential Interventions and Drugs for Ebola (RAPIDE). His team have been evaluating an intravenous anti-Ebola preparation (TKM-Ebola) in Sierra Leone and Peter supporting the evaluation of convalescent plasma in Sierra Leone and Guinea.