KHRC Trains Field Staff and Midwives for New RSV Observational Study
April 02, 2025 | News Feed | Reading time: 4 min
As part of efforts to successfully carry out a new study on Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), the Kintampo Health Research Centre (KHRC) has trained its field staff and midwives to equip them with the skills needed to collect accurate data for the study.
The series of trainings, held from 19th February to 26th March 2025, took place in six health facilities across the Techiman North District and Techiman South Municipality of the Bono East Region of Ghana. The facilities include Tuobodom polyclinic, Tanoboase CHPS Compound, Abrafi Hospital, Aworowa Health Centre, Krobo Health Centre, and Offuman Health Centre. The training covered key areas including the study’s objectives and procedure, data collection, assigning unique QR codes to each study participant and collecting blood and nasal swap samples from the newborns. Ten (10) field staff, who interact directly with study participants, and 67 midwives, received this training.
As part of data collection, the trained midwives will collect blood and nasal swab samples from study participants who give birth at health facilities while trained field staff will handle samples from home deliveries.
RSV is a common virus that affects the lungs, especially in children under five and is a major cause of pneumonia, the leading cause of death in young children. Since efforts to introduce an RSV vaccine are at an advanced stage, KHRC is conducting this observational study to assess its ability to carry out a larger phase 4 RSV vaccine trail in the future.
About RSV Observational Study
The RSV Observational study, titled “Prospective, Epidemiological, Non-Interventional, Multi-Country Based, Cohort Study to Assess Site Capability for A Phase IV Trial Assessing Efficacy of a Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) Vaccine in Pregnant Women to Protect Their Infants (<6 Months Age) Against RSV Lower Respiratory Tract Infections (LRTIs)” is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through Wits Health Consortium at the University of Witwatersrand and is being conducted in selected communities in Bono East Region.
KHRC will recruit 150 pregnant women between 24 and 34 weeks of pregnancy over a period of 10 weeks. The study will monitor the babies for six months after they are born to track RSV infections. Findings from this observational study will help prepare for the phase four RSV vaccine trial.
