Prospective cohorts to study COVID-19 including HIV

New prospective studes to understand the natural history, especially in special populations, for example with HIV are already underway.

These should be started as soon as possible and hopefully using similar or shared methodology that will enable data from multiple studies to be combined when larger power is needed to see smaller signals, for example for genetic markers.

These studies should be developed with the involvement of community advocates and should be listed on clinicaltrials.gov (where dozens already planned) or another clinical trials registry.

A few initiatives are listed below as reference for other researchers looking to start similar projects.

COVID-19 in UK general population

Queen Mary College London and collaborators are planning a prospective observational cohort of 12,000 participants in the UK general population aged 16 and over. The primary outcome is COVID-19 diagnosis with numerous clinical secondary outcomes.

Ref: clinicaltrials.gov. Longitudinal Population-based Observational Study of Coronavirus Disease in the UK Population (COVIDENCE). NCT04330599.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04330599

NEAT-ID develop COVID-19 dashboard for HIV data in Europe

The last issue of HTB included news that the NEAT ID network has developed a simple database dashboard to monitor the progress of COVID-19 in HIV positive people across Europe for researchers to contribute to.

COVID-19 and HIV: a prospective observational US study

The University of Missouri is running multi-centre prospective observational study in 500 participants coinfected with HIV and COVID-19. [1, 2]

They aim is to characterise the clinical presentation and clinical course of COVID-19 in people living with HIV.

The primary outcome is 30-day mortality with serious comorbidities are secondary outcomes. The study opened in April and will run until October.

HIV cure researchers in US launch HIV and COVID-19 coinfection database

An initiative in the US called Coronavirus Under Research Exclusion (CURE HIV-COVID) has launched an adult database to monitor and report on outcomes of COVID-19 occurring in HIV patients. [1]

They want US doctors to report all cases of COVID-19, regardless of severity and including asymptomatic patients detected through public health screening. Cases should be confirmed COVID-19 with at least seven days of follow-up. Each case is easy to report only and will take about five minutes. [2]

However, although the database only plans to use de-identified data, and does not count as human research requiring IRB approval, it is unclear how confidential patient information will be managed.