Saudi Arabia’s Health Ministry has received 423 research proposals from a number of colleges and universities with the participation of researchers from other sectors in the COVID-19 Research Grant Program.
Submitted proposals focused on areas of prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and social and moral aspects.
The Health Ministry, after concluding the submitting and evaluation phase, had announced the winners of the COVID-19 Research Grant Program. Twenty Saudi scientific papers with new results on the virus were published.
Researches are still in the implementation stage, gathering accurate information on the best methods of treatment and limiting the spread of the virus, in preparation for publishing evidence-based conclusions and information.
The Ministry of Health is keen that submitted research bears scientific value and access to information and vital samples related to implementation. This is achieved after ensuring that administrative research measures necessary to maintain the confidentiality of the personal data of patients and participants are applied.
The King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology (KACST) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the Saudi Health Council, and the Saudi Center for Disease Prevention and Control (SCDC) had initiated an expedited research funding program (COVID-19 Research Grant Program) aiming to support research on COVID-19 to better understand and elucidate the coronavirus pandemic through in-depth etiological and epidemiological studies, disease pathogenesis, data modeling, and developing rapid diagnostics.
The program envisages that the outcomes of these efforts will lead to a better understanding of SARS-CoV-2 biology and behavior and will lead to the development of more efficient, accurate, and rapid point-of-care diagnostic analysis and detection tools.
