On Apr. 21, 2020, Rutgers University announced it has launched the nation’s largest prospective study of health care workers exposed to COVID-19. The study includes a series of clinical trials that will explore new drug treatments, antibody testing, and long-term health tracking in the hope of providing insight into how to treat the disease and prevent its spread.

Close to 550 health care providers and close to 300 nonhealth care workers from Rutgers, University Hospital in Newark and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick have volunteered for the study, some with direct patient exposure and others with no direct patient contact. The study is being coordinated by Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS), the university’s academic health center. Initial results suggest a gender disparity in risk: women have been infected at a rate of 13 times their male counterparts. Some of this may be attributed to the existing disparity in the nursing workforce, which currently includes more women than men.

Rutgers employs more than 7,000 doctors, nurses and health professionals throughout the state of New Jersey. Those who participate in the study will be tested for COVID-19. Testing will be carried out at Rutgers’ RUCDR Infinite Biologics, which last week received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin the nation’s first saliva-based test for COVID-19.

The study will prospectively determine infection rates in the Rutgers workforce who regularly treat patients and for those without direct patient exposure by following the participants for six months.  The point of the study is to determine the proportion of the workforce who will get infected.  Such information is critically important in determining who gets infected and their susceptibility characteristics for infection.  Separately, the trial will also determine whether some health care workers will develop immunity and, thus, could be first responders in the pandemic.

The university has launched two clinical trials as part of the study. The first is for patients who test positive for COVID-19 and are symptomatic. They have been enrolled in a clinical trial at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. The trial will determine if azithromycin combined with hydroxychloroquine is better than hydroxychloroquine alone for treatment of patients with COVID-19. Azithromycin is approved by the FDA for the treatment of infections. Hydroxychloroquine is approved by the FDA for the treatment of malaria and autoimmune diseases, such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.