Understanding COVID-19 infection in pregnant women and their babies (periCOVID Africa)

WP2 partners within the PREPARE study, have been awarded an EDCTP Research and Innovation Action (RIA) award for COVID-19. The grant will align with WP2 activities and includes 9 collaborators in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Norway, The Gambia, Uganda, and the UK. It will build on existing pregnancy and neonatal cohorts in five African countries to better understand COVID-19 impacts on pregnancy, define immune responses in mothers and babies, and work with communities on infection prevention and control in pregnant women. 

Recruiting women during pregnancy in five countries across Africa:
The Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda

Fully aligned with WHO MCH Generic Pregnancy and Neonatal COVID study protocol 

Total pregnancies all countries: 70,000 

WP2 – periCOVID-Africa

• Designed to align with existing study collection time points (PREPARE and PRECISE)
• All samples to be taken as swabs (except blood samples)
• All women will have:
  • Throat swab
  • Blood sample
  • Cord blood
  • Infant nasal swab
• Any woman who tests positive for COVID-19 during the study will have additional samples taken   

WP3 – Community engagement

• Developing a strategy for patient and public involvement, communications, capacity strengthening and stakeholder engagement
• Working with our partners to develop a comprehensive programme of patient engagement around COVID-19 that can build around existing cohort studies
• Designing patient facing documents and providing training for researchers to align with community values
• Understanding issues that are important for pregnant and breastfeeding women during COVID-19

Key actions

• Inviting local families, nursing and midwifery staff to a meeting about the study
• Focus group discussions to understand the effects of the pandemic on antenatal and postnatal care seeking and knowledge and views about the pandemic.

PREPARE Project

Enabling Technologies & Assays
Epidemiology
Vulnerable Populations

Jun 2020

$582,073

Kenya
Malawi
Mozambique
The Gambia
Uganda

Clinical Epidemiology of COVID-19 in Malaria Settings