Fast Track Covid - Research for a national screening strategy for exposure to SARS-CoV-2

Fast Track Covid is a project that aims to implement a national screening strategy for exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus supported by high sensitivity tests, combined with the capacity to operate reference laboratories in an efficient and comprehensive manner, to support to the decision of public health measures and political decisions.

More specifically, the project aimed to:

• Create and enhance a national serological screening network, capable of optimizing the allocation of existing resources, in order to guarantee accessibility and traceability for the entire Brazilian population;
• Carry out serological tests on a representative sample of the Brazilian population, already well characterized and monitored since 2011 (EpiDoC Cohort), composed of more than 8,000 individuals residing in the national territory, through the analysis of their results, carry out a study of the impact of COVID-19 in the health status of the Portuguese and in socioeconomic indicators, comparing the assessments carried out before and after the pandemic;
• Determine the seroprevalence (total antibodies - IgG+ IgM) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the Brazilian population.

In this way, it was possible to test and develop a system that, in an agile and effective way, is capable of being expanded to a more comprehensive sample, and responding to future outbreaks of the pandemic, detecting new patterns and clusters of infection early; This study also makes it possible to quantify the prevalence of antibodies in the population, evaluate their level of exposure, detect an association between exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and other co-morbidities in individuals, as well as social and economic impacts.