An international COVID-IBD database has been set up to monitor and report on outcomes of COVID-19 disease occurring in IBD patients.

Gastroenterologists in Australia are being encouraged to report all cases of COVID-19 in their IBD patients to the Surveillance Epidemiology of Coronavirus Under Research Exclusion (SECURE)-IBD database.

Led by IBD clinicians in the US, the SECURE-IBD database aims to emulate the success of other disease specific COVID-19 registries including the COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance (rheum-covid.org) database that now has more than 777 patients with rheumatological disease.

“Given the interest in the emerging and evolving coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic and the questions regarding how this will impact patients with IBD, many of whom may be undergoing treatment with immune suppression, we decided to create a secure, online, de-identified Personal Health Identifier (PHI)-free reporting registry, “ write Dr Michael Kappelman and Dr Erica Brenner, paediatric gastroenterologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dr Richard Gearry of the University of Otago, New Zealand, is representing the Australia/New Zealand region on the SECURE-IBD advisory committee.

“We encourage IBD clinicians worldwide to report ALL cases of COVID-19 in their IBD patients, regardless of severity, including asymptomatic patients detected through public health screening),” they say.

“With the collaboration of our entire IBD community, we will rapidly be able to define the impact of COVID-19 on patients with IBD and how factors such as age, comorbidities, and IBD treatments impact COVID outcomes.”

They stress that reporting a case to the (SECURE)-IBD registry should take about five minutes and the registry contains only de-identified data.

According to the organisers, the project website, web.unc.edu will provide regularly updated summary information about reported cases, including numbers of cases by country, number of cases by treatment, etc. so the entire IBD community has access to these data.

“This is an international effort—we are counting on robust participation and collaboration.

“We hope you will actively contribute to this voluntary reporting system.  Through broadscale participation and collaboration, we will be able to answer these very pressing questions for our IBD patients and their caregivers.”