UK college launches a COVID-19 symptom tracking app to study the progress of the infection

King’s College London launched a COVID-19 symptom tracking app in the UK to allow daily self-report.

The app tracks in real-time the progress of the disease aiming at slowing the outbreak by helping researcher identify:
- How fast the virus is spreading in an area
- High-risk areas in the UK
- Who is most at risk, by better understanding symptoms

Around 5,000 twins and their families in the UK have been recruited from the TwinsUK cohort study to trial the app. They will record information about their health on a daily basis. Information relates to temperature, tiredness, and symptoms (e.g. coughing, breathing problems, headaches). Comparing twins enable researches to separate the effects of genes from environmental factors.

The aim is to send participants COVID-19 home testing kits to understand which symptoms correspond to the infection. Data from the study will reveal information about the progress of COVID-19 infection in different people and why some develop a more severe or fatal disease while others have mild symptoms.

The study will support the need to distinguish between coronavirus symptoms and seasonal coughs and colds.

The free monitoring app has been developed by King’s College London and health data science company ZOE. The study is led by a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, Professor Tim Spector.

“These are worrying times for everyone. Our twins are a 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 people who use the app, the better the real-time data we have to combat the crisis in this country,” Professor Spector said.

The TwinsUK COVID-19 research study is funded by King’s College London, ZOE Global Ltd, the CDRF charity, and the National Institute of Health Research Guy’s, and St Thomas’ Biomedical Research Centre.

The app is available also to the general public without the testing component of the study.

Adapted from: https://twinsuk.ac.uk/kings-college-london-pioneers-symptom-reporting-ap...

More information: https://covid.joinzoe.com/