Investments in respiratory infectious disease research 1997–2010: a systematic analysis of UK funding

Head, Michael G; Fitchett, Joseph R; Cooke, Mary K; Wurie, Fatima B; Hayward, Andrew C; Lipman, Marc C; Atun, Rifat

There is also evidence of respiratory infection transmission at mass gatherings, such as the Hajj. 23 In addition to providing meningococcal and influenza vaccination for travellers, there should be investment in operational research to explore health system responsiveness to emerging threats and efficient ways to provide preventive medicines, as well as measuring the effectiveness of preventive therapies. There was very little funding for translational research relating to pneumonia, a clear gap in the UK portfolio. Other vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and pertussis, which are causes of high disease burden globally, also received very limited research funding despite there clearly being the need for translational and operational research. 16 The worldwide burden of drug-resistant tuberculosis is rapidly increasing, with WHO estimates of 630,000 cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis worldwide, great variation between countries, and emergence over the last decade of extensively drug-resistant cases. 24 Given the difficulties of developing a more effective vaccine, 25 the need for new diagnostics, therapeutics and targeted use of existing medicines becomes even more important. The reported resistance to antiviral drugs used to treat influenza 26 emphasises the need to for develop effective antivirals and effective vaccines. There is a paucity of research in antimicrobial resistance. 27 This is of concern, and has been highlighted by the UK Chief Medical Officer, 28, 29 with new funding for research related to antimicrobial resistance provided. 30 We believe that other funders should follow this lead. Most countries are under-investing in tuberculosis R&D 31 Our study has several limitations, which have been highlighted and discussed in detail elsewhere. 16 There was little publicly-available data from the pharmaceutical industry. Hence, there is a data gap in relation to funding of clinical trials and development of vaccines and diagnostics, which the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry are financing. Beyond disease burden, other measures, 18 such as economic burden should also be utilised when prioritising limited resources, but little information is available regarding the economic impact of respiratory infections. We rely on the original data being complete and accurate, and are unable to take into account distribution of funds from the lead institution to collaborating partners, nor can we assess quantity of each award given to overheads or the impact of the introduction of full-economic costing. Also, assigning studies to categories is a subjective and imperfect process -although we used two researchers to do this to 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59