UPDATE 6 Feb 2022:
We have good news – the invitations to the MELODY study (Mass evaluation of lateral flow immunoassays (at home finger prick antibody tests) for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses in immunosuppressed people) are going to start being sent out next week.
One thousand pilot invitations are going to to people with Rare Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases from the 7th February, and a further 19,000 invitations will go out two weeks later. The aim is for 12,000 people with rare autoimmune rheumatic diseases to take part – which involves people completing an online questionnaire and doing a finger-prick blood test at home to check their antibodies.
People who have blood cancer or rare autoimmune diseases will be receiving personal invitation letters soon. The researchers have 36,000 antibody test kits for the MELODY study, which is enough to achieve valid results, but not enough for everyone with these conditions to participate. Invitations are therefore going out to a random sample of those people who are eligible. You can learn more about how people are selected and invited in the MELODY Study Fair Processing Notice.
We are pleased to support researchers at London’s Imperial College in a study to understand how well third doses of vaccine protect immunocompromised patients against Covid-19.
The MELODY STUDY is funded by:-
The study, known as ‘MELODY’, will involve 36,000 immunocompromised patients across the UK.
The study will start with those with kidney and other organ transplants: direct applications are invited now from people in this group – please register here.
In a later phase, the study will be recruiting:
- people with rare autoimmune diseases receiving immunosuppression
- people who have had a diagnosis of blood cancer.
We will update this information when the second phase is imminent.