The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of collaborative scientific research like never before. With the world facing an unprecedented health crisis, it has become clear that scientific collaboration and knowledge sharing are critical to finding solutions to the challenges posed by the pandemic. Scientific cooperation increased during the pandemic bringing the ability to pool resources and expertise from across the globe.¹ Cooperative science can lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the virus, its transmission, and the disease it causes. With COVID-19, researchers worldwide have collaborated to share data, collaborate on studies, and develop new therapies and vaccines.

Collaborative scientific research is key to accelerating the pace of research. The traditional model of scientific research involves a slow and often fragmented process of discovery, validation, and dissemination. In Brazil, one seminal example of collaboration is the coalition initiative that congregates more than 70 centers around the country and has led several randomized clinical trials with more than 5000 participants. One good example of their results is the Coalition Covid Brazil III trial that demonstrated that dexamethasone improves patients with severe COVID-19.² These results are comparable to the landmark Recovery Trial that demonstrated for the first time that in patients hospitalized with Covid-19, dexamethasone resulted in lower 28-day mortality.³ Coalition studies also showed that hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, did not benefit mild-to-moderate⁴ or severe COVID-19 cases.⁵

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