Data sharing: A Long COVID perspective, challenges, and road map for the future

‘Long COVID’ is the term used to describe the phenomenon in which patients who have survived a COVID-19 infection continue to experience prolonged SARS-CoV-2 symptoms. Millions of people across the globe are affected by Long COVID. Solving the Long COVID conundrum will require drawing upon the lesso...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSouth African Journal of Science Vol. 119; no. 5-6; pp. 73 - 80
Main Authors Oladejo, Sunday O., Watson, Liam R., Watson, Bruce W., Rajaratnam, Kanshukan, Kotze, Maritha J., Kell, Douglas B., Pretorius, Etheresia
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published South Africa Academy of Science for South Africa (ASSAf) 01.05.2023
Academy of Science of South Africa
Subjects
Angle of attack
Big Data
Clinical trials
Collaboration
COVID-19
Data collection
Data science
Data sharing
Datasets
Epidemiology
Information sharing
Long COVID
Medical records
Medical research
Open access
Open data
Pandemics
Patients
Researchers
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Viral diseases
data science
Long COVID
data sharing
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Summary:‘Long COVID’ is the term used to describe the phenomenon in which patients who have survived a COVID-19 infection continue to experience prolonged SARS-CoV-2 symptoms. Millions of people across the globe are affected by Long COVID. Solving the Long COVID conundrum will require drawing upon the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which thousands of experts across diverse disciplines such as epidemiology, genomics, medicine, data science, and computer science collaborated, sharing data and pooling resources to attack the problem from multiple angles. Thus far, there has been no global consensus on the definition, diagnosis, and most effective treatment of Long COVID. In this work, we examine the possible applications of data sharing and data science in general with a view to, ultimately, understand Long COVID in greater detail and hasten relief for the millions of people experiencing it. We examine the literature and investigate the current state, challenges, and opportunities of data sharing in Long COVID research.Significance: Although millions of people across the globe have been diagnosed with Long COVID, there still exist many research gaps in our understanding of the condition and its underlying causes. This work aims to elevate the discussion surrounding data sharing and data science in the research community and to engage data sharing as an enabler to fast-track the process of finding effective treatment for Long COVID.
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Authors’ contributions
S.O.O.: Wrote the paper, edited the paper, corresponding author, study leader. L.R.W.: Contributed to the scientific context. K.R.: Contributed to the scientific context, writing and editing of the paper. B.W.W., M.J.K., D.B.K. and E.P.: Contributed to the scientific context and edited the paper.
ISSN:0038-2353
1996-7489
DOI:10.17159/sajs.2023/14719