Patients with COVID-19 can be affected in many ways, many of which are only now coming to light as our knowledge of the virus develops. We know that patients with COVID-19 have an increased risk of cardiovascular complications such as blood clots and heart damage (myocardial injury). We also know that some patients with pre-existing cardiovascular disease, such as previous heart attacks or strokes, have a higher risk of adverse outcomes with COVID. Currently we are unable to tell which patients are at highest risk of these complications.
A European-wide initiative (COVIRNA) is aiming to develop a tool which will then better inform decision making and help clinicians discern who is at highest risk from complications of COVID-19.
In order to develop this tool they will gather pseudonymised data and blood samples of people with and without COVID from 10 centres across Europe, the University of Edinburgh will be one of the centres to provide this information using DataLoch data and samples from NHS Lothian.
