Rapidly documenting SARS-CoV2 and post inflammatory sequelae in children in Southern Africa

Children in lower/middle income countries (LMIC) experience a unique burden of disease including infectious diseases (tuberculosis and HIV), malnutrition, and paediatric noncommunicable diseases. The effect of SARS-CoV2 on children in this setting is unknown. In other regions, children have had less severe disease, with a small cohort who develop a post-inflammatory multi-system syndrome temporally associated with SARS-CoV2 (PIMS-TS). PIMS-TS has shown a concerning bias towards children of black, asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities in other countries and there is an emerging cluster of children critically ill with PIMS-TS in the Western Cape. It is essential to rapidly document cases of paediatric SARS-CoV2 and PIMS-TS in the region. The proposed research aims to capture data from children with COVID-19 and PIMS-TS across South Africa and provide a collaborative platform, supported by the South Africa Medical Research Council (SAMRC), to collect these data from across Sub Saharan Africa (SSA). In addition, this project will support a biological arm, which aims to understand the aberrant immune response that may result in PIMS-TS in a smaller cohort of children from the Western Cape. These data will provide an in-depth understanding of SARS-CoV2 and PIMS-TS in children in SSA, providing valuable data for locally appropriate, evidence-based disease mitigation, risk stratification and treatment strategies.