| Friday, May 20, 2022  |
Children participating in a pilot study of a single rare viral disease could provide NIAID scientists and colleagues with tools to slow or stop future viral pandemics. Researchers at four United States locations are enrolling children 10 and younger in a minimum 3-year study of enterovirus D68 (EV-D68), which evidence suggests can cause a polio-like neurologic disease in children called acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM. More broadly, the study is a test case for how some scientists think countries could plan for viral pandemics, using a two-step approach of meshing human immunology with virus sequence surveillance. The EV-D68 pilot study is part of the Pandemic Response Repository through Microbial and Immune Surveillance and Epidemiology, or PREMISE. The initiative comprises a network of investigators that aim to collect samples from groups of people to detect immunity against viruses of pandemic potential. The group hopes to show that it is possible to select a virus, learn how it infects, replicates and mutates; learn what makes certain people susceptible to infection; learn what protects other people from infection; and then use that data to inform the development and testing of vaccines and antibody products to have "waiting on the shelf" if needed.  | 
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