COVID-19 Vaccination in Transplant Recipients: CDTRP National Initiative

The challenges of the pandemic have been particularly acute for transplant recipients. As vaccination programs begin rolling out across the country, there remain many unanswered research questions about COVID-19 vaccination in this population, who were excluded from all of the initial clinical trials. Over the last few months, CDTRP has been working to connect, mobilize, and align our community to identify and address these urgent issues.

On January 6, 2021, we convened an Expert Panel in the fields of solid organ and stem cell transplantation, transplant infectious diseases, immunization, public health, and patient partners to identify critical knowledge gaps around vaccination for COVID-19 in transplant recipients. The Panel produced a report that can be downloaded here.

The Expert Panel report formed the backbone for the agenda of a National Stakeholder Workshop held January 29, 2021. We were delighted to have over 30 stakeholder organizations contribute, including the not-for-profit, government, and health care sectors, as well as public health, patients/families, and professional societies. The workshop focused on how to prioritize the research studied identified, assembling a Knowledge Generation Roadmap. The Workshop Report can be found here.

We are now actively planning and seeking funding for the top priority studies. Further, there was a clear message from our patient and family partners about the need for ongoing, two-way communication, and planning for this is also underway.

We will share more information with our community as this project develops. We welcome your feedback! If you have any questions or comments on this initiative, please write to info@cdtrp.ca.