Completed Infection & Immunity Pregnancy, Children & Inherited Conditions

Paediatric and adolescent infections

Funder MRC (part of UKRI)
Recipient organisation University College London Source-published name: University College London
Funding £6.7M
Period Mar 2015 — Dec 2021

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Children are still dying from infections like HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria—and this research programme runs multiple studies to find out which drugs and treatment strategies work best for them, not just for survival but for their daily lives. This matters because treatment guidelines for children often lag behind those for adults. Doctors must balance controlling or curing an infection against side effects and the practical burden of taking pills every day—factors that determine whether a family can stick with a treatment. The programme also investigates what living with a long-term infection like HIV does to a child’s schooling and friendships, a gap in knowledge that standard drug trials rarely address. If successful, the evidence will directly shape national and international clinical guidelines. That could mean children receive drug regimens that are not only more effective but also easier to manage at home, reducing deaths and long-term illness while improving quality of life. The research is applied and pragmatic—its endpoint is better policy, not a new molecule or mechanism.

View original technical description
Infections are a very important reason why children get sick. In many parts of the world, large numbers of children still die from infectious diseases, like HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and blood infections. This programme of research uses different kinds of studies to answer questions about how we can best manage and treat infections in children and young people, both to reduce their chance of dying and being sick for longer, but also to increase their quality of life. This includes studies to work out what are the best drugs to use, thinking not just about controlling infections like HIV or curing infections like tuberculosis, but also what side-effects the drugs might have or how easy or hard families find it to take different numbers and types of pills every day. Other studies are working out what aspects of living with a long-term infection like HIV have the biggest impact on children and young people’s lives, including how they manage school and friends. The goal is to provide evidence so that national and international guidelines for managing children and young people with infections recommend the best options for them.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Ali Judd (Co-Investigator)Ann Walker (Co-Investigator)Deborah Ford (Co-Investigator)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

Syndromic infections
Other infectious diseases of global public health significance
Blood borne viruses
Respiratory infections
The Causes and Consequences of Residual Immune Activation in HIV-infected Children on ART in Resource-Limited Settings

Original classification

Intramural

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.