Right now, RSV is sweeping across South Africa. Many of South Africa’s big health organizations, like our partner the National Institute For Communicable Diseases Of South Africa, are putting out warnings to clinicians.

RSV, or the Respiratory syncytial virus, is a common respiratory virus. A respiratory virus is something that affects the lungs and airways (breathing passages). RSV mostly causes mild, cold-like symptoms like fever, coughing, runny noses and sore throats.

RSV is usually mild, but it can be serious, especially for infants and older adults. This is because RSV can lead to other conditions like Pneumonia or bronchiolitis. The symptoms of RSV can also get worse, especially for people with underlying conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma and congestive heart failure.

Over the last 10 years RSV had a pattern, it usually started infecting people before flu season kicked off and died down around the end of Feb. But with COVID-19 pandemic the RSV season has been thrown off its usual patterns and is only starting now at the end of March. The big thing that’s worrying a lot of health researchers though is this RSV’s season’s higher than usual infection rate, that’s really hit schools and especially kids under 5 hard this year.

If you, a friend or a family member over 18, feel sick with these symptoms, get your self tested for free with our Cough Check study. If your kid is feeling sick, and they are showing the warning signs of a serious RSV infection, you can get them tested quickly with our 3 in 1 PCR test. This test uses just one swab but tests for RSV, influenza and COVID, so you will know exactly what’s going on.

No Doctor Referral Required

Free Rescheduling & Cancellation

Results in 24-36hrs & Completely Free

Free Medical Results Certificate With Each Test

Test Yourself From the Safety of Your Home

This study is proudly partnered with National Institute For Communicable Diseases Of South Africa

Cough Check is a Self-swabbing Pilot Study, which aims to come to patient’s homes and give them the chance to test themselves.

Take charge of your COVID-19 test. Epicentre believes you should have control of your health. When you feel sick, your body is sensitive. With self-swabbing, you can control how fast or slow your swab is inserted during your COVID-19. This complete control ensures a less painful and invasive test and has evidence of equal effectiveness of tests by trained professionals.

Epicentre Health Research is in partnership with The Centre for Respiratory Diseases and Meningitis (CRDM) as part of The Viral Watch (VW) programme. This study aims to test for both the influenza viruses, Human respiratory syncytial virus and SARS-Cov-2 (COVID-19).

To book a Cough Check test with Epicentre, you will need to either book a test online or message our WhatsApp number at 072 843 7564

✔ The Cough Check team will ask you some questions they read on their tablet. These questions are multiple choice and very easy.

✔ The Cough Check team will ask you to test yourself and give you instructions on how to do it

This involves taking a long thin cotton Q-tip known as a swab and sticking it up your nose and slowly turning it, taking it out and placing it in a protective plastic container

✔ The Cough Check team will then send your ‘swab’ to our lab at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases to test for COVID-19, the common cold and the flu.

COVID-19 is a new disease that has affected the lives of all South Africans. There is still a lot to learn about COVID-19 and how it has affected communities. Our primary aim is to:

1. To assess if testing yourself is effective for picking up these viruses

2. To describe the symptoms of patients with undiagnosed acute respiratory tract illness and compare them to those that are diagnosed.

3. To improve the detection of these viruses

4. This information is important to guide in planning and decision-making for preventing future waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa, as well as to pick up what the new strains of flu are for the next flu season.

Our secondary aims are to:

1. To estimate the VE of the influenza vaccine against laboratory-confirmed influenza illness in 2021 if the detection rate of influenza and sample size allows for the analysis.

2. To estimate the VE of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine against laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 illness in 2021 if the detection rate of SARS-CoV-2 and sample size allow for the analysis

3. To document logistic constraints, costs and acceptability of home self-swabbing for identification of influenza, SARS-CoV-2 and RSV as a supplement to existing VE platforms.

4. To assess the logistics of samples refrigeration, timely processing for culture and isolate identification using self-swabbing.

5. To compare timing and extent of influenza, SARS-CoV-2 and RSV virus circulation as detected in facility-based surveillance to that documented by home-based self-swabbing

6. To describe the timing between illness onset, collection kit arrival to household, collection and delivery to the laboratory for self-swabbing

The Cough Check team can visit your home if:

✔ You are experience any of these symptoms:

shortness of breath, cough, sore throat, loss of taste or small, fatigue, myalgia or chest pain

✔ You contact the Epicentre Team on WhatsApp at 072 843 7564 and ask to take part

✔ You organize a time to meet at your home with our team

✔ You live within 30km of one of our Drive-Through branches

❌ Unfortunately, it is a requirement of our free testing that you take part in our study

✔ You are welcome to make use of our paid testing service.

✔ Yes, we will send you your results

✔ All participants’ details are kept private so that participants cannot be identified.

✔ To do this we link participants to a barcode not their name.

✔ Cough Check has gone through a very strict ‘ethical review’ with several independent ethical comities for every part of the study. We have to protect every participant and follow a very strict plan about what happens to each person’s information (in terms of where it goes & who sees it). Which are explained in detail to every person who participates.

✔ & each team member in the Cough Check study, is required to sign a confidentiality agreement when they begin working on the project.

So they may not discuss this information or disclose it to any outside parties.

✔ Every person who participates gives us more information on COVID-19, the flu and the common cold is impacting South Africans like you around the country.

✔ By testing yourself you help us show scientists that patients should be given the power to control their own health

✔ You help South Africa make testing easier and safer

A COVID-19 PCR test or a polymerase chain reaction test, is a COVID test that is done to find genetic material from the COVD-19 virus. This kind of molecular tests detects the RNA of the coronavirus and are sensitive enough to only need a very tiny amount of it in order to pick up an infection.

The benefit of this test is its ability to pick up very small amounts of viral RNA very early in an infection, so there is a low chance for false negatives, including among pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 cases.

In South Africa having a COVID test result can be the difference between getting into hospital, so we all need to understand that to book a COVID test with Epicentre:

You DO NOT need to wait 7 days

You need to wait 5 days after you think you touched or breathed in the COVID virus

You DO NOT need a doctors referral

You Do NOT need to be showing symptoms

You just need to make an online booking or arrive at our testing branch (We are happy to accept walk-ins)

Day (-)5: patients exposure to COVID-19 happens.

It is only after this 5-day period that their infection will officially ‘begin’.

Day 0-2: 5 days after their initial exposure, their infection will ‘happen’ in these first 2 days

They will become contagious in those first 2-3 days, but will show no symptoms

You can test at this point because your infection has officially begun

Day 3: Their symptoms will appear

But for 80% of people, they will have no symptoms or a mild case of COVID-19

Day 5-7: This is a crucial period of days as it is at this point that many people go into hospital if they have a serious case of the virus. Some patients may have a “mild” case of the disease in the very beginning, but their symptoms may get worse over the course of the first week or more & then they may need hospitalization.

Those who need hospitalization normally reach this point of needing additional health support on day 5 to 7 after their symptoms start (Wang, et al.).

These patients should be on the lookout for any worsening ability to perform normal activities or tasks at home due to ‘shortness of breath’. These patients should immediately contact their doctor.

These patients need to take a copy of their positive COVID-19 results & get their symptoms checked at a healthcare facility.

For more information on the serious symptoms of COVID-19 to watch for, you can read our informative article.

Day 14: If you had a mild case and are symptom free, you can stop isolating.

After this point if you recovered and want to test for a COVID-19, you would need to use a Rapid COVID-19 Antibody test

For a more in depth look at the stages of a COVID-19 infection take a look at our helpful article on the day by day symptoms of a COVID-19 infection.