SARS-CoV-2 Prevalence and Persistence in Stool – The CoPS Study

The Quadram Institute on the Norwich Research Park, working with the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, is looking to recruit participants who have tested positive for COVID-19 within the last 2 weeks, to help understand more about the virus.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus has quickly developed as a global pandemic with a huge unprecedented impact in health systems worldwide. Researchers are trying to understand how the virus causes the disease in order to fight back.

Initial studies have shown that over 60% of COVID-19 positive subjects show gastrointestinal symptoms, such as diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting. SARS-CoV-2 has been identified in faecal samples of these patients.

Dr Ngozi Elumogo and Professor Arjan Narbad

The research team now want to know how often and for how long the SARS-CoV-2 virus is present in the stool of COVID-19 positive subjects. They also want to learn whether and how the virus changes in saliva, respiratory tract and the gut during the infection. This will help to understand if more than one route of transmission is possible. To achieve these goals, they are collecting stool and saliva samples from people who have recently been tested positive for COVID-19.

“This study will allow us to understand the ability of this virus to persist in the gastrointestinal tract both during and after the patient has recovered from symptoms of COVID 19” said Professor Arjan Narbad from the Quadram Institute.

“We are discovering new information about this virus all the time and it is important to find out if the virus persists in stool so that we can investigate further the possibility of faecal oral transmission, and better design methods for minimising transmission” said Dr Ngozi Elumogo.

To find out more, please see https://quadram.ac.uk/cops