Evaluating the impact of COVID-19 on malaria and other infectious diseases in Uganda: Understanding comorbidities

Recognizing the heavy toll that malaria and other infectious diseases have on vulnerable populations in sub-Saharan Africa, Malaria Consortium and Uganda’s Ministry of Health (MoH) will conduct a case series on COVID-19 patients — a descriptive clinical study that reports on patients with a particular condition who are receiving similar treatment. This research seeks to understand the burden chiefly of malaria (but also of TB and HIV/AIDS) among patients with COVID-19, and to assess the clinical consequences of potential interactions.

The case series will form part of the MoH’s ongoing clinical assessment and care administered to COVID-19 patients. It will be carried out at all COVID-19 treatment centres across Uganda and will include patients of all ages, and at various stages of infection, who have a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 according to World Health Organization (WHO) and MoH guidelines.

Study Design: Observational – Prospective Case series

In order to achieve these objectives, Malaria Consortium will:

• collate demographic and clinical information about patients in the study, including travel history, medical history, current symptoms and medications, and findings of clinical examinations
• train research assistants on study procedures, including infection prevention and control
• collect, test and analyse blood samples from patients, checking for previous exposure to malaria parasites, current malaria infection status, HIV, haematology and biochemistries
• use qualitative methods to assess health workers’ perspectives on the management of malaria in COVID-19 patients
• develop a report documenting the findings of the study and prepare outputs for peer review

Outcome Measures

• Prevalence of malaria among patients with COVID-19 
• Clinical spectrum of malaria among patients with COVID-19
• Clinical outcomes of COVID-19 patients with malaria compared to those with no malaria
• Clinical outcomes among COVID-19 patients prescribed currently used antimalarial drugs as per current clinical indications
• Impact co-infections including malaria, HIV/AIDS and TB on COVID-19 outcomes 

Drug-based Strategies
Measurement of Transmission
Social Science

Apr 2020 — Sep 2020

$100,000

Uganda

Clinical Epidemiology of COVID-19 in Malaria Settings