COVID-19 National Testing Programme - University of Oxford

Reg. 14 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR2015) subjects certain R&D services to its Part 2 public procurement rules if the benefits of the R&D services accrue exclusively to the contracting authority for its use in the conduct of its own affairs, and the service provided is wholly remunerated by the contracting authority.

As part of the National Testing Strategy, Pillar 4's surveillance work endeavours to capture a nationwide picture of Covid-19's prevalence amongst the wider UK population.

Unlike the other demographic specific studies, the UK Biobank Seroprevalence Study is intended to capture [sero]prevalence data from across the country, both now and over the course of the next 6 months. The data from the study will be sent to DHSC on a weekly basis.

DHSC have partnered with the UK Biobank who are project managing the research, given their existing cohort of participants, operational and analytical expertise.

UK Biobank aims to collect monthly blood samples and symptom data (via a short questionnaire) from its participants (as well as from their children and grandchildren aged over 18) to enable an assessment of the extent of previous infection with the SARS‐CoV‐2 coronavirus (by measuring blood antibodies) in different locations and age groups across the UK.

The aim is to recruit a population-based sub-study from UK Biobank participants and their adult (i.e. aged over 18) children and grandchildren. It is expected that participants will contribute to the study for 6 months (extendable). The duration of the study will be determined by the trajectory of the coronavirus pandemic in the UK.

The objective of the study is to determine the extent of previous infection with the coronavirus that causes COVID‐19 (by collecting samples that can be measured for blood antibodies) in a nationally representative sample of the UK population.

The UK Biobank funded activities cover participant recruitment, sample collection, sample processing and storage, and provision of samples to the University of Oxford for sample assay to measure blood antibodies and reporting of infection rates based on returned quantitative assay data.

The assay and associated costs are outside of the scope of funding to UK Biobank and are the subject of this contract.