COVID-19: Understanding the Post-Viral Phase (COVID UPP)
As the rate of COVID-19 infection progresses in many regions of the United States, many patients, after experiencing an acute infection, continue to experience debilitating symptoms that result in a viral-induced fatigue syndrome with similar symptomatology to ME/CFS. It is well understood that viral or bacterial insult combined with other factors likely contribute to the onset of ME/CFS. However, the rate of post COVID-19 ME/CFS could drive these numbers up to staggering proportions, with one million ME/CFS cases in the U.S. today, prior to the pandemic.
Study Design
This epidemiologic study surveys a community-based population in sufficient numbers to estimate the risk of long-term ME/CFS-like symptoms following infection of COVID-19. This part of the study will utilize two components: a longitudinal survey population, and a clinic-based assessment/phenotyping population. The longitudinal survey population will comprise of a large online survey component involving the study populations and the clinic-based assessment/phenotyping population consisting of a smaller on-site component to phenotype the ME/CFS-like illness.
We are recruiting people who had an initial COVID-19 positive test and still have symptoms 3 months later, from health care systems and clinical practices in Broward and Miami Dade counties. This includes Baptist Health System, Jackson Memorial Health System, UHealth (University of Miami) the VA (Miami and Broward Veterans Health clinics) , Broward General, NSU Health, Community Health of South Florida, Inc. (CHI) and several clinics that specialize in acute or post COVID-19 care in the two counties. Patients in these health care systems or clinics are receiving emails or text messages that include a link to enroll in the study. English and Spanish-speaking participants are welcome.
The longitudinal survey population will be contacted at least four times a year for health and trajectory assessments over a three-year period. In the phenotyping/clinical assessments, additional survey questionnaires, physical examinations, echocardiograms, spirometry measurements, laboratory testing, and expert clinical examinations will be performed.
If you think you are eligible and did not receive an email or text, please contact us at: postcoviduppstudy@nova.edu
or
Join the study by completing the COVID-UPP Survey.
Study subjects are compensated for their time.