Patient-level dataset to study the effect of COVID-19 in people with Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory autoimmune disease of the central
nervous system, causing increased vulnerability to infections and disability
among young adults. Ever since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
outbreak, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
infections, there have been concerns among people with MS (PwMS) about the
potential interactions between various disease-modifying therapies and
COVID-19. The COVID-19 in MS Global Data Sharing Initiative (GDSI) was
initiated in 2020 to address these concerns. This paper focuses on the
anonymisation and open-sourcing of a GDSI sub-dataset, comprising data entered
by people with MS and clinicians using a fast data entry tool. The dataset
includes demographics, comorbidities, hospital stay, and COVID-19 symptoms of
PwMS. The dataset can be used to perform different statistical analyses to
improve our understanding of COVID-19 in MS. Furthermore, this dataset can
also be used within the context of educational activities to educate different
stakeholders on the complex data science topics that were used within the
GDSI.