An anti-malaria medicine called hydroxychloroquine might be a rescue drug for Covid-19—or maybe not. Or another anti-inflammatory drug, such as tocilizumab, might dampen the deadliest effects of the coronavirus. For now, there’s a lot of hope—and a controversial plug from President Donald Trump—for existing medicines that could possibly work as Covid-19 treatments, but not much data. Fast-tracked studies will take weeks, if not months, to produce results. So in the meantime, doctors around the globe are responding by sharing information, creating registries of people with chronic diseases who have also become infected with Covid-19. Each entry is just an anecdote: the bare details of each patient's age, underlying conditions, the medicines they take regularly and for Covid-19, and how well they fare under treatment. But collectively, the registries offer a valuable picture of an evolving disease.

Gastroenterologists at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York were the first to organize a project to collect disease-specific Covid-19 data, with a focus on patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) such as Crohn’s disease and colitis. After they launched the project on March 10, a global online community came together with uncanny speed. “Two and half weeks ago, we knew that the patients and caregivers and the professional community needed to have answers and needed to have them really quickly, so we could advise patients what to do as this pandemic continues to take hold,” says Michael Kappelman, a pediatric gastroenterologist at UNC and a cofounder of the SECURE-IBD.

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As of Monday, the registry had reports from 41 patients in 13 countries, including the US, Spain, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Ten so far have required hospitalization for their Covid-19 symptoms. But it’s too soon to draw any conclusions from those numbers, Kappelman says. (The overall rate of hospitalization in the US, based on 4,226 Covid-19 cases analyzed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is 12 percent.)

The IBD world came together globally to support the registry, which links specialists who treat pediatric and adult patients. “This is unprecedented in every way, shape, or form,” says Kappelman. “Never have I gone from having an idea to a research project launch in a week. Nor could I ever have imagined that was possible.” He notes that the project involved developing a protocol; consulting with an institutional review board (independent experts who reviewed ethical issues); creating a database; crafting a marketing plan, including a study name and logo; and developing a project website.

The registry is becoming even more powerful as it inspires the creation of other similar patient registries. The SECURE-Cirrhosis registry, which includes patients with chronic liver disease and cirrhosis and those who have had liver transplants, went live on March 20. Along with its European counterpart, that registry had logged five cases as of March 23. Physicians treating psoriasis and sickle cell disease are creating sites, and doctors in other specialty fields have expressed interest, Kappelman says.

On March 24, rheumatologists from around the world launched the Covid-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance, a coordinated effort of more than 200 rheumatologists, to track how their patients are faring with the coronavirus. The rheumatology registry may attract special attention in light of the recent focus on the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a possible coronavirus treatment. Hydroxychloroquine (sold under the brand name Plaquenil) is a first-line treatment for lupus, a painful autoimmune disorder that affects the skin, joints, and organs. It is used to treat other autoimmune disorders, as well, such as rheumatoid arthritis.