The Swedish Government commissioned SciLifeLab https://www.scilifelab.se to build laboratory capacity to assist in the management of future pandemics.
Today. SciLifeLab is currently exploring how to help in the fight against variants. SciLifeLab set up the Pandemic Laboratory Preparedness (PLP) program in February 2021 with eight PLP programs started in July 2021. The projects underway focus on Biosafety Level 3 (BSL3) capacity, Biobanking and clinical sample handling, environmental detection of pathogens, immunomonitoring, Serology and Sequencing.
Sequencing was needed to detect the Omicron variant and most clinical microbiology labs have set up capabilities that can now identify variants in COVID-19 in infected patients. Also, there are ongoing developments where sequencing methods will used for large scale screens for emerging pathogens in order to make it possible to detect new, unknown pandemic threats.
All the data generated from studying COVID-19 are uploaded to a COVID-19 Data Portal which is maintained by the Data Center at SciLifeLab with funding from the Swedish Research Council. The portal will try to collect and annotate all relevant data and make the information accessible.