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Article History

Received: 19 December 2017

Accepted: 11 October 2018

First Online: 29 October 2018

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: All laboratory staff at Public Health England, Porton Down that donated blood signed an informed consent form. All samples were anonymised. The consent form used for the collection of blood, to be used as anonymised reagents or controls for assay development, did not require approval by an external ethics committee, which is in compliance with revised guidance Governance Arrangements for UK Research Ethics Committees (GAfREC) (September 2011). The blood collection consent form has been through internal review at Public Health England to ensure it is fully compliant with all current regulations including the NHS Research Governance Framework for Health and Social Care (April 2005), the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki (1996), the Human Tissue Act (2004) and the Data Protection Act (1998).The study carried out at University Southampton Faculty of Medicine (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01701869) was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the National Research Ethics Service (NRES) Southampton B Committee (12/SC/0304). All subjects gave written informed consent.

: Not applicable.

: All authors have declared the following interests: PL and DW are employees of the GSK group of companies. PL reports ownership of shares and/or restricted shares in the GSK group of companies. The other authors report no financial competing interests.

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