It’s official the Cough Check Study is back from Monday the 5th of June 2023 in Hillcrest and surrounding areas!

Cough Check is a Self-swabbing Pilot Study, this means that our teams will come to your home on request. We will then give you all the information and tools you need to swab/test yourself for COVID and the flu.

Our team can help those over 5 years old get tested. This study is proudly partnered with National Institute For Communicable Diseases Of South Africa

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

✔ When the Cough Check team member visits you they will ask you some questions and record your answers 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. Assess if testing yourself is effective for picking up these viruses

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

3. 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.

You can join the Cough Check Study if:

✔ You have been exposed to COVID-19 OR the Flu You are experiencing any of these symptoms:

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

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

✔ You are welcome to make use of our Walk-in lab.

✔ The Cough Check Study 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 team, 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.

✔ Yes, we will send you your results.

✔ You will help scientists know if these new antigen tests are effective at testing people for COVID-19 in South Africa.

✔ You help make South African COVID-19 testing easier and safer.

The Cough Check study uses an Antigen COVID-19 test or a polymerase chain reaction test. The Antigen test is a COVID test that is done to find genetic material from the COVD-19 virus.

This kind of molecular test 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.

✔ Free Rapid COVID-19 Antigen test (SAPHRA approved)

✔ Free confirmatory PRC test available within 36–48 hours.

Our Cough Check study uses the NICD Lab team.

Epicentre has an extensive walk-in testing centre for both rapid and lab tests. Learn more here.

If you want to read more articles like this, join our monthly newsletter! We release insider info on what the health research industry is taking a look at each month.