The International Scientific Advisory Group (ISAGs) played a primary role, at RESCEU 4th GAM. Precisely, one of the main responsibilities of this body of experts on scientific and technical matters relevant to the project is to provide advice to the General Assembly and the Steering Committee and support their decision making.
In this year’s General Assembly Meeting, the ISAG was represented by its Chair, Larry Anderson (Emory University), Mark A. Miller (National Institutes of Health) and Pasi Penttinen (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control – ECDC). After attending all presentations and scientific debates that took place in the two-half day sessions, they offered their feedback on the annual progress made by the different work packages.
Besides commending the project’s leadership and its substantial achievements in an exceptional context, they referred to the new scenario created by the COVID-19 emergency. From their point of view, RESCEU is a shiny example of what can be done to address other vaccine preventable diseases, including COVID-19. In this sense, they considered that RESCEU’s activities have set the standard in terms of generating the data and literature review that is relevant mainly for the National Immunisation Technical Advisory Groups (NITAGs). In fact, NITAGs were identified as a key audience for the RESCEU project.
They also encouraged the RESCEU Consortium to face the next scientific challenges formulated by the project itself, explore ways to collaborate and share data with other groups and, finally contribute to find a response in COVID-19 related studies.
Harish Naïr, RESCEU project coordinator, confirmed that the Consortium plans to collaborate with ECDC and NIGA going forward. “We will work together with policy makers to shape the agenda for the introduction of RSV immunization and raise awareness about this disease” he stated.