Objective 1: Diagnosis

The first objective of the Chair is to confirm that the type I interferon score serves as a universal marker for respiratory viral infections. To achieve this, the Hospices Civils de Lyon will collect 1,000 nasopharyngeal swabs from hospitalized patients, on which the performance of this new IFN-I test for diagnosing viral infections will be evaluated. In order to be exhaustive on viral infections, similar studies will be conducted on three other continents: Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia. This will help confirm the universal applicability of the marker.

The ability of the IFN-I score to distinguish active viral infections (i.e., replicative infections) will also be tested in this research phase. Using the samples collected from HCLs, we will determine a threshold response to IFN in nasopharyngeal swabs that reflects the replicative nature of the current infection. This threshold can be further refined through ex vivo methods, such as exposing human respiratory epithelium to inactivated viruses (via thermal inactivation or UV treatment).