Oxford University Clinical Research Unit

Vietnam

The Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam is based in the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Cho Quan Hospital, a 550-bed infectious diseases tertiary referral centre in Ho Chi Minh City. The Unit collaborates with the Wellcome Trust South East Asia Overseas Programme and has approximately 150 staff in state-of-the-art laboratories.

Research work focuses on improving understanding of the mechanisms and best clinical strategies for malaria, typhoid, dengue, encephalitis, meningitis, tetanus, TB, diphtheria, and severe sepsis. Within each area of work, different strands and disciplines include clinical research, community-based epidemiology, basic laboratory sciences, vaccines, and public health policy and implementation. This collaboration housed some of the first studies of the Chinese herbal drug qinghaosu (artemisinin) for the treatment of malaria; this drug has gone on to be recognised as the most potent and potentially the most important anti-malarial treatment yet discovered. The Unit also played a key role in the region's outbreak of avian flu in 2004, enabling valuable information to be gathered on the clinical impact of the virus.

People

• Jeremy Farrar (MalariaGEN Investigator)
• Sarah Dunstan (MalariaGEN Investigator and Senior Data Fellow)
• Tran Tinh Hien (MalariaGEN Investigator)
• Nguyen Quyen (MalariaGEN Data Fellow)

How the team have contributed to MalariaGEN

The University of Oxford Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam has so far contributed 1000 cases and 1500 controls to Consortial Project 1. The team have also contributed 90 unrelated individuals to Consortial Project 3.