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IntroductionAccurate and affordable laboratory testing is key to timely diagnosis and appropriate management of patients with COVID-19. New laboratory test protocols are released into the market under emergency use authorisation with limited evidence on diagnostic test accuracy. As such, robust evidence on the diagnostic accuracy and the costs of available tests is urgently needed to inform policy and practice especially in resource-limited settings. We aim to determine the diagnostic test accuracy, cost-effectiveness and utility of laboratory test strategies for COVID-19 in low-income and middle-income countries.Methods and analysisThis will be a multistaged, protocol-driven systematic review conducted in line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines for diagnostic test accuracy studies. We will search for relevant literature in at least six public health databases, including PubMed, Google Scholar, MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science and the WHO Global Index Medicus. In addition, we will search Cochrane Library, COVID-END and grey literature databases to identify additional relevant articles before double-screening and abstraction of data. We will conduct a structured narrative and quantitative synthesis of the results guided by the Fryback and Thornbury framework for assessing a diagnostic test. The primary outcome is COVID-19 diagnostic test accuracy. Using the GRADE approach specific to diagnostic accuracy tests, we will appraise the overall quality of evidence and report the results following the original PRISMA statement. The protocol is registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/).Ethics and disseminationEthical review was done by the School of Biomedical Sciences Research Ethics Committee and the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology. The published article will be accessible to policy and decision makers. The findings of this review will guide clinical practice and policy decisions and highlight areas for future research.PROSPERO registration number CRD42020209528.

Background: Globally, health care workers continue to be infected, fall ill and die at the frontline of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) fight, an indicator of inadequate safety in health facilities. This rapid evidence synthesis aims to highlight the impacts of COVID-19 on healthcare workers in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) in terms of infections, illnesses and deaths. Methods: A systematic review will be done. Article search will be performed by an experienced librarian in PubMed, MEDLINE Ovid, Google Scholar, COVID-END, Cochrane library and targeted search from other relevant sources. MeSH terms and Boolean operators “AND” and “OR” will be used in the article search. Independent reviewers will screen the retrieved articles using a priori criteria. Data abstraction will be done using an excel based abstraction tool and synthesized using structured narratives and summary of findings tables. Discussion: This evidence synthesis seeks to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on the healthcare systems of low- and middle-income countries. Information on healthcare worker infections, illness, and deaths due to COVID-19, will be collated from published research articles. This will help guide decision makers in establishing low- cost high impact interventions to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 in the health work force.Protocol registration: PROSPERO CRD 42020204174 [1] [1] This protocol registration can be found at; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?ID=CRD42020204174