Clinical Research Directory

Smart Analysis and Decision-Making for Emerging Infectious Diseases

Emerging infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, mpox, and dengue fever, are characterized by rapid transmission, wide impact, and high uncertainty, posing ongoing threats to global public health. While China achieved significant success in COVID-19 control, the response also revealed key challenges, including fragmented information, delayed risk perception, experience-dependent assessment, and inefficiencies in complex decision-making. This study aims to establish a smart technology system covering the full chain of "risk perception-situational assessment-intelligent decision-making-comprehensive evaluation." Specific objectives include: Constructing a global disease burden database and knowledge graph for emerging infectious diseases; Developing early risk assessment models covering the full transmission spectrum (cross-species, imported, and local outbreak); Building an AI-driven collective intelligence decision-support tool for epidemic control; Developing precise intervention frameworks and comprehensive evaluation indicators for key populations (e.g., elderly, students); Integrating the above technologies into a multi-agent toolkit and evaluating its effectiveness through a cluster randomized controlled trial involving at least 36 district/county-level CDC clusters across five provinces/municipalities (Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hubei, Sichuan, and Shanghai). Three eligible CDC staff members will be enrolled from each participating cluster, including one CDC director or relevant leader responsible for infectious disease prevention and control and two professional staff members engaged in acute infectious disease surveillance, risk assessment, decision-making, or emergency response. Accordingly, at least 108 participants will be enrolled, and the final anticipated enrollment will be determined by the total number of participating clusters. The intervention group will use the smart toolkit alongside routine practices, while the control group will follow routine practices only. The primary outcome is response time for epidemic assessment and decision-making (hours from risk perception to decision completion). Secondary outcomes include epidemic control effectiveness, user satisfaction, and socioeconomic benefits. The intervention period is 3 months, starting around July 2026 and ending in December 2027. This study has been approved by the Peking University Biomedical Ethics Committee. The study does not involve individual patient data; all data are aggregated at the district/county level from CDC sources or publicly available data. Anonymous questionnaires do not collect any personal identifiable information.

Establishment of a Biobank for the Evaluation of Rapid Diagnostic Solutions

This multicenter prospective registry aims to establish a biobank of residual biological samples and associated clinical data from hospitalized patients. The registry will collect a wide range of specimens (serum, plasma, respiratory samples, urine, cerebrospinal fluid, biopsies) obtained during routine care, without any additional procedures. Data are pseudonymized and stored securely for up to 20 years. The biobank will be used to develop and evaluate rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for emerging infectious diseases and CBRN threats to improve epidemic preparedness and patient management.