During these two years, researchers at participating centers in Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru had to turn their attention to care activities to cope with the ravages of the pandemic. The teams responsible for recruitment and intervention, completely focused on the clinic, postponed the start of the project to deal with this emergency.
Several of the researchers were also affected by the virus, and the ethics committees responsible for giving the ok to recruitment and the intervention, had to stop their activities.
Unfortunately, it would not have been possible the participation of subjects who, in other circumstances, would have been agree to come to health centers participating in the study to take part in the intervention.
From Europe, once the design of the study by the British partner was completed, the Spanish and Italian teams have continued working during these two years supervising the pandemic situation in the four participating Latin American countries, as well as the particular situation of the recruiting centers and the committees. Likewise, close contact was maintained, both with the investigators in charge in these countries, and with the European Commission to consider the changes to be applied in the work plan in order to minimize, as much as possible, the effects of the pandemic on the research.
Two years after the beginning of the pandemic, DIABFRAIL-LATAM has finally been able to start recruiting of participants in order to continue with the research and currently has 88 participants included in the research in Colombia.
The project is therefore continuing as planned after the forced pause due to the pandemic situation. Thus, over the next few months, it is expected that, first recruitment and then the intervention, will be completed and, according to plan, the scalling up phase will begin and it will be carried out by the Pan American Health Organization, a WHO affiliate in America, another of the partners participating in the project.
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