When the Ebola outbreak overwhelmed health care resources in Africa and challenged them in the U.S., research on the virus was quite limited.
Little was known in 2014 and there was no vaccine. Researchers were frantic to catch up.
Since then, UNMC has rewritten the book on patient care and the use of personal protective equipment. Because of that, in 2015, UNMC, along with Emory University in Atlanta, and NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue in New York City, received a $12 million grant to establish the National Ebola Training and Education Center (NETEC).
Now, that grant has been doubled to $24 million in order to create a special pathogens research network. Funds also are targeted for additional site visits and education and training courses, which the original grant supported.
The network, which will span the three partner institutions and the country’s 10 specially trained regional Ebola treatment centers, will allow investigators to conduct rapid response research when an infectious disease outbreak occurs, said Chris Kratochvil, M.D., associate vice chancellor for clinical research at UNMC, vice president for research at Nebraska Medicine, UNMC’s clinical partner, and co-principal investigator of NETEC at UNMC.
"When Ebola hit, the three institutions were independently trying to determine the best drug for treatment," he said. "It was inefficient – we weren’t using the same protocols and there was no consistency to the research. Now we can all collaborate to develop medical countermeasures together."
The funding, to run in tandem with the original five-year grant, is provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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Learn more about NETEC’s mission.