The German Society of Infectious Diseases (DGI) has initiated the establishment of a European case registry to collect clinical data of patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection.
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The new registry, Lean European Open Survey for SARS-CoV-2 Infected Patients (LEOSS), is aimed at providing scientists and doctors with reliable clinical data to enable them to answer numerous urgent questions, such as when do COVID-19 patients develop severe symptoms? what is the best possible treatment? or which measures have been successful up to now? Under the new initiative,all the collected data will be available to the scientific community for use in crowd-based analyses.
The first
cases were submitted on 17 March, and as of 20 March there
are 20 documented cases from 21 confirmed sites.
The registry is available across the EU and allows anonymous documentation, thus
permitting patients who are no longer able to give their informed consent to be
included in the registry. The study is self-governed by a Board of
Investigators consisting of the contributing centres, with the participation of
Country Coordinators and the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and
Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) representatives.
The initiative has been jointly set up with the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) and is supported byRobert Koch
Institut, Data Against COVID-19andESCMID’s
Emerging
Infections Task Force.
Prof. Jörg Janne Vehreschild, DZIF scientist at the University Hospital of
Cologne who is coordinating the project, noted
that there was an urgent need for free anonymised data in SARS-CoV-2 research.
“The availability of palpable clinical data of patients in Europe can be
pivotal in providing the best care possible for the anticipated high number of
cases, including those who are critically ill,” Vehreschild emphasised.
Interested study centres and data analysts are invited to participate. More
information is available on the project’s website.
Source: LEOSS
Image credit: LEOSS
