CLEAR: COVID-Like Illness Respiratory Pathogens - Diagnostics Response in Ghana. A Prospective Cohort on the COVID-19 Post-acute Condition

This is an observational prospective matched cohort study to evaluate the post-acute consequences of the SARS-CoV-2 symptomatic infection (case-positives) while having as comparison groups (1) symptomatic controls (case-negatives) and (2) healthy controls, that are healthy individuals recruited from the same community of the cases, but not arise from the same household. After pre-screening of COVID-19 symptoms at the hospital and other satellite health centers, consenting/assenting patients of 16 years of age and above with all range of PCR-confirmed Covid-19 disease severity -from mild to severely ill hospitalized patients- will be recruited and matched to other Non-SARS-CoV-2 PCR-determined patients and to healthy community controls. Then, they will be followed up for 12 months (13 months after screening) to determine the occurrence of admissions, any outpatient encounter, symptoms (new or persistent) and concomitant use of medication after 28 days of diagnosis.

At recruitment, respiratory samples are collected for respiratory infections diagnosis. Also, blood samples are collected to generate baseline data on potential biomarkers associated to occurrence of investigated outcomes. This will include biochemistry (including inflammatory markers) and hematology as well as SARS-CoV-2 serology (IgG) which will also be taken at the end of follow up to rule out infection during the course of the follow up. Though, the serology testing won't be done along each recruitment but in batches during the study period. Clinical (symptoms and diagnosis), socioeconomic, demographic, household conditions, health seeking behavior and medical history information will be gathered.