Announcement of the winners of the ReCH-MIE 2023 call for proposals
Call for proposals for hospital clinical research projects dedicated to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases
Published on 23 July 2024
In brief
The winners of the call for proposals for hospital clinical research projects dedicated to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (ReCH-MIE 2023), launched by the Directorate General for Healthcare Provision (DGOS) and led by the ANRS MIE, have been published: four research projects have been selected for funding.
The aim of these projects is to improve patient care and the efficiency of healthcare systems, whether by improving the diagnosis of infections in immunocompromised patients, treating post-Covid respiratory sequelae, preventing RSV infection in infants, or managing Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia.
Projects selected for the Rech-MIE 2023 call for projects
SENTINEL project : evaluation of the performance of NGS metagenomic analysis of faeces and urine for the diagnosis of unexplained pathologies in immunocompromised patients and for the surveillance of emerging diseases.
The SENTINEL project, led by Jacques Fourgeaud (Hôpital Necker, AP-HP), aims to assess the performance of NGS metagenomics, a technique that enables the complete sequencing of all the genomes present in a sample. The aim of this prospective study is to improve the detection of pathogens in immunocompromised patients. Its originality lies in the use of non-invasive samples of stool and urine, compared with reference samples of tissue such as cerebrospinal fluid, bronchoalveolar lavage and/or blood, which are usually used routinely.
In a preliminary pilot study, the project leaders showed that the probability of detecting a pathogen was two and a half times higher in immunodeficient people than in immunocompetent subjects, with a higher detection rate in stool samples than in invasive samples. This work has also contributed to the description of new pathogens and the diagnosis of previously undiagnosed diseases.
The project aims not only to improve the diagnosis of infections in immunocompromised patients, but also to monitor emerging pathogens in this population more effectively. One hundred and twenty patients will be recruited from eight French hospitals over a 24-month period.
BASECOVID project : efficacy and safety of bevacizumab in the post-acute respiratory sequelae of COVID-19
The BASECOVID pilot project presented by David Smadja (Hôpital européen Georges Pompidou, AP-HP) concerns the respiratory sequelae of Covid. It is evaluating the benefits of using bevacizumab, a monoclonal antibody already authorised for use in the treatment of several cancers.
Dyspnoea and breathing difficulties are among the frequent symptoms of long-Covid-. They have a major impact on the quality of life of those affected, and no treatment is currently available. Damage to endothelial cells and vascular remodelling processes are among the multiple potential mechanisms behind these clinical manifestations. Bevacizumab has powerful inhibitory properties on angiogenesis, the set of phenomena that contribute to the formation of new blood vessels. The primary endpoint of this study is the improvement in DLCO, a test that measures the diffusion capacity of carbon monoxide, which is impaired in a proportion of patients with long-Covid respiratory disease.
Although the efficacy of bevacizumab has already been tested in patients with severe hypoxaemic COVID-19 pneumonia, this pilot trial is the first to evaluate the compound in the context of the respiratory sequelae of the disease. Five intravenous infusions of bevacizumab will be administered every fortnight to 21 patients recruited at the Hôtel Dieu hospital over a period of 2 years.
PIPELINE-RSV project : prevention of RSV infection in infants by administration of nirsevimab, with or without maternal vaccination
The project(PIPELINE-RSV, led by Pierre Frange (Hôpital Necker, AP-HP), concerns infections linked to the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in children, the main virus responsible for bronchiolitis, a lower respiratory tract infection affecting infants. In 2023, France was one of the very first countries in the world to make nirsevimab, a new antibody immunising against RSV, available to infants.
This research project is part of the European PIPELINE consortium, a platform for pandemic preparedness in Europe. As part of this platform, several European trials are planned to evaluate strategies for preventing symptomatic RSV infections in infants: comparison of nirsevimab administered to infants, maternal vaccination or the combined strategy (nirvesimab and vaccine). An identical, standardised methodology, covering inclusion criteria, procedures, assessment and analysis criteria, will enable the results of the various trials conducted in Europe to be pooled and meta-analyses to be carried out.
The PIPELINE-RSV project is a phase 3 randomised controlled trial evaluating nirsevimab in infants with or without maternal vaccination for the prevention of symptomatic RSV infections in infants. The aim of the French trial is to demonstrate the superiority of the monoclonal antibody in infants combined with maternal vaccination compared with the administration of nirvesimab alone in infants. 1,000 mother-infant pairs will be included in France during the 24-month inclusion period, out of the 2,500 pairs planned for inclusion in Europe.
Adaptive network platform for Staphylococcus aureus testing
The aim of this research project, part of the SNAP (S. aureus Network Adaptive Platform) international platform, led by Pierre Tattevin (Rennes University Hospital), is to identify the optimal management of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB) caused by penicillin-sensitive, methicillin-sensitive or methicillin-resistant strains, which are responsible for frequent pathologies and high morbidity and mortality.
Staphylococcus aureus is the bacterium most often responsible for serious infections in France, both in hospitalised patients (nosocomial infection) and patients treated in the community. This bacterium, which colonises around 1/3 of the general population in good health, becomes particularly dangerous when it passes into the bloodstream: this is what is known as Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia -. With an incidence that has doubled over the last 10 years in Europe according to the most effective surveillance systems, SAB will be one of the most deadly emerging infectious diseases in 2024.
This project aims to evaluate several anti-infective strategies through integrated, multi-factorial, randomised controlled clinical trials on several continents. It will test therapeutic interventions in 3 areas (primary antibiotic, adjuvant treatment, oral relay), with 90-day all-cause mortality as the primary endpoint. Five hundred patients will be included in 25 centres in France over a period of 24 months, out of a total of 7,000 patients planned for the platform.
The list of selected projects can also be downloaded from the Ministry’s website
ReCH-MIE 2024 call for proposals
The 2024 campaign for the ReCH-MIE call for proposals will be launched shortly.
ReCH-MIE 2024 call for proposals