Estimating point prevalence of COVID-19 in Qatar’s primary care registered population: An rt- PCR drive through study protocol

Background The first COVID-19 cases in Qatar were reported on 29th of February 2020. As the epidemic progresses, essential epidemiological information is needed to facilitate monitoring of COVID-19 in the population and plan pandemic response in Qatar.

Aim The primary aim of this cross-sectional study is to estimate the point prevalence of COVID-19 in Qatar’s primary care registered population.

Design and Settings A cross sectional study design will be utilized. One publicly funded health centre from each of three geographical regions in Qatar will be identified as a study location and set up to facilitate a drive through for the study.

Method PHCC is publicly funded and the largest primary care provider in Qatar. The study will include randomly selected individuals from the full list of Primary Health Care Corporation’s (PHCC)registered population on its electronic medical records system. The sample selection will be done using a proportional to size sampling technique stratified by age, gender and nationality representative of the overall PHCC registered population. Considering the total population registered in PHCC a sample of 2080 is proposed. A questionnaire will be administered to collect sociodemographic information and a nasal and throat swab sample will be taken. Data will be analysed to report overall symptomatic and asymptomatic point prevalence of COVID-19.

Conclusion This study, with the help of a randomly selected representative sample from Qatar’s primary care registered population, will provide results which can be applied to the entire population. This study design will closely represent a real-world scenario of the outbreak and is likely to provide important data to guide COVID-19 pandemic planning and response in Qatar.