COVID-MASK_v1.0 [COVID-19]
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The efficacy and feasibility of face mask sampling for hospitalised adult patients and healthcare workers with suspected COVID-19
IRAS ID
282437
Contact name
Manish Pareek
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Leicester
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 14 days
Research summary
COVID-19 has become a global problem. There is an urgent need to improve the diagnosis and screening of patients and healthcare workers for COVID-19 in the UK. Mask based sampling is a method of detecting SARS-COV-2 (the virus responsible for COVID-19) in the breath of suspected COVID-19 patients or healthcare workers in the mask that they would wear in hospital. The investigators have previously demonstrated the utility of this method in other respiratory infections, such as tuberculosis.\n This project aims to investigate the utility of mask-based sampling is a tool for the diagnosis and quantification of COVID-19 in breath and the implications in a healthcare setting using three cohorts of participants. Initially we will compare the amount of COVID-19 detected by mask sampling compared with standard nasopharyngeal swab, which is the current gold standard test, in patients who present to hospital with COVID-19 symptoms. \nWe will address the length of time COVID-19 is breathed out by people affected by the virus and the how infectious the virus is over time in a cohort of symptomatic healthcare workers who are isolating at home. This will allow us to understand how long someone stays infectious for and may have the potential to inform public health measures, for instance when healthcare workers can return to work or duration of isolation.\nFinally we will investigate asymptomatic carriage of COVID-19 by different healthcare workers in different areas of the hospital during a screening study. This will allow us to understand the extent of infection amongst healthcare workers and allow us to address hospital acquired transmission.\n
REC name
West Midlands - Solihull Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/WM/0153
Date of REC Opinion
2 Jun 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion