Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 2, 2025

Author Spotlight: A Pseudotype Virus System for Assessing Omicron Subvariants and Neutralizing Antibodies in SARS-CoV-2 Research
Published on: September 8, 2023
COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness and variants in Nepal: study protocol for a test-negative case-control study with
Sanjeev M Bijukchhe1,2, Peter J O'Reilly3, Katherine Theiss-Nyland3
1Department of Paediatrics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK sanjeev.bijukchhe@st-hildas.ox.ac.uk.
Introduction:
Inactivated, viral vector and mRNA vaccines have been used in the Nepali COVID-19 vaccination programme but there is little evidence on the effectiveness of these vaccines in this setting. The aim of this study is to describe COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness in Nepal and provide information on infections with SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Methods And Analysis:
This is a hospital-based, prospective test-negative case-control study conducted at Patan Hospital, Kathmandu. All patients >18 years of age presenting to Patan Hospital with COVID-19-like symptoms who have received a COVID-19 antigen/PCR test are eligible for inclusion. The primary outcome is vaccine effectiveness of licensed COVID-19 vaccines against laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 disease.After enrolment, information will be collected on vaccine status, date of vaccination, type of vaccine, demographics and other medical comorbidities. The primary outcome of interest is laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. Cases (positive for SARS-CoV-2) and controls (negative for SARS-CoV-2) will be enrolled in a 1:4 ratio. Vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 disease will be analysed by comparing vaccination status with SARS-CoV-2 test results.Positive SARS-CoV-2 samples will be sequenced to identify circulating variants and estimate vaccine effectiveness against common variants.Measuring vaccine effectiveness and identifying SARS-CoV-2 variants in Nepal will help to inform public health efforts. Describing disease severity in relation to specific SARS-CoV-2 variants and vaccine status will also inform future prevention and care efforts.
Ethics And Dissemination:
Ethical approval was obtained from the University of Oxford Tropical Ethics Committee (OxTREC) (ref: 561-21) and the Patan Academy of Health Sciences Institutional Review Board (ref: drs2111121578). The protocol and supporting study documents were approved for use by the Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC 550-2021). Results will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals and to the public health authorities in Nepal.
More Related Videos
10:26Author Spotlight: A Cost-Effective Genomic Workflow for Advancing Rabies Control in Resource-Limited Settings
Published on: August 18, 2023
07:15Determining the Likelihood of Variant Pathogenicity Using Amino Acid-level Signal-to-Noise Analysis of Genetic Variation
Published on: January 16, 2019
Related Concept Videos
Study Designs in Epidemiology
Observational studies are those where the researcher does not intervene but rather observes natural variations. They include cross-sectional, cohort, and...
What is an Experiment?
Controls in Experiments
Types of Biopharmaceutical Studies: Controlled and Non-Controlled Approaches
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast,...
Bias in Epidemiological Studies
Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms-SNPs