King’s College London has developed a smartphone app to track symptoms related to coronavirus and allow users to self-report daily as part of a research programme.
Its department of twin research and genetic epidemiology has developed the app with Guys and St Thomas’ Hospitals and health data science company Zoe – itself a spin out from King’s – using its TwinsUK research programme as a foundation.
The college is preparing to make the app available to healthcare staff and the public who wish to contribute to the research and other large population studies.
Twins using the app will record information on the health, such as temperature, tiredness, any breathing problems or headaches. Any showing signs of having contracted the coronavirus will be sent a home testing kit to help researchers better understand which symptoms truly correspond with the virus.
Researchers believe this is clinically urgent given the current limits on testing.
Twins research
The initiative comes out of the research programme on twins, which uses comparisons of genetically identical and non-identical siblings to help researchers separate the effects of genes from environmental factors and the microbes within the gut.
Samples taken from the twin group will be used to generate a biobank for use in future research projects investigating infection and immune responses.
Researchers believe that the data from the study will reveal important information about the symptoms and progress of the infection in different people, and why some go on to develop more severe or fatal disease while others have only mild symptoms.
They also say it will help the urgent clinical need to distinguish mild coronavirus symptoms from seasonal coughs and colds.
Unprecedented detail
Professor Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s, said: Our twins are fantastically committed, enthusiastic health research participants who have already been studied in unprecedented detail, putting us in a unique position to provide vital answers to support the global fight against Covid-19.
“The more of the public that also use the app, the better the real time data we will have to combat the outbreak in this country.”
The app will also be available to the general public but they will not be sent the home testing kits.
Image by Felipe Esquivel Reed, CC BY-SA 4.0
