ABSTRACT
Introduction: COVID-19 seroprevalence studies for Health Care Personnel (HCP) can provide relevant information on the proportion of people who have experienced a recent or past infection and provide information about populations that may be immune and potentially protected. Aim of the study was to determine the seroprevalence of COVID-19 and associated factors among HCP and to correlate COVID-19 antibody results with respect to time duration since laboratory confirmed positive COVID-19 test and vaccination. Methodology: A prospective, cross-sectional study in HCP working at Shree Krishna Hospital and Pramukhswami Medical College, Karamsad was conducted at Microbiology section of Central Diagnostic Laboratory (CDL). Following approval from Institutional Ethics Committee, the study was conducted from March 2021- June 2022. The serological test to measure COVID-19 IgG antibody was done by Enzyme Linked Fluorescent Assay (ELFA, VIDAS, Biomerieux) in 118 eligible HCP. Antibody response was correlated with age, gender, occupation, work area, symptoms, test requests and test results. Correlation of COVID-19 antibody results with respect to time duration since laboratory confirmed positive COVID-19 test and after vaccination was done. All the data was entered and analysed in Microsoft Excel 2010. Results: Seroprevalence of COVID-19 was found to be 97.45% (115/118) in HCP. Seroprevalence was 100 % in all the age groups except 18-30 and 41-50 years;100% in all the professional categories except consultant doctors and resident doctors;100% in HCP working in non-COVID-19 unit and 100% in participants not tested for COVID-19 test. 13 (37.14%) HCP were seropositive beyond 11 months duration after positive COVID-19 test. In 49 (44.54%) HCP, SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody were found beyond 7 months duration after COVID-19 vaccine. SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody were positive in eight (6.96%) non-vaccinated and 107 (93.04%) vaccinated participants. Conclusions: COVID-19 infection and/or COVID-19 vaccination might have contributed to excellent seroprevalence in health care personnel (HCP) of our hospital. Persistence of SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody for longer duration was observed in HCP with past infection as well as past vaccination. Natural COVID-19 infection might have contributed to seropositivity in a few nonvaccinated, asymptomatic & RTPCR/RAT negative/not done HCP. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Pharmaceutical Negative Results is the property of ResearchTrentz and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Our purpose was to establish the prevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) in asymptomatic patients scheduled to receive radiation therapy and its effect on management decisions. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Between April 2020 and July 2020, patients without influenza-like illness symptoms at four radiation oncology departments (two academic university hospitals and two community hospitals) underwent polymerase chain reaction testing for SARS-CoV-2 before the initiation of treatment. Patients were tested either before radiation therapy simulation or after simulation but before treatment initiation. Patients tested for indications of influenza-like illness symptoms were excluded from this analysis. Management of SARS-CoV-2-positive patients was individualized based on disease site and acuity. RESULTS: Over a 3-month period, a total of 385 tests were performed in 336 asymptomatic patients either before simulation (n = 75), post-simulation, before treatment (n = 230), or on-treatment (n = 49). A total of five patients tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, for a pretreatment prevalence of 1.3% (2.6% in north/central New Jersey and 0.4% in southern New Jersey/southeast Pennsylvania). The median age of positive patients was 58 years (range, 38-78 years). All positive patients were white and were relatively equally distributed with regard to sex (2 male, 3 female) and ethnicity (2 Hispanic and 3 non-Hispanic). The median Charlson comorbidity score among positive patients was five. All five patients were treated for different primary tumor sites, the large majority had advanced disease (80%), and all were treated for curative intent. The majority of positive patients were being treated with either sequential or concurrent immunosuppressive systemic therapy (80%). Initiation of treatment was delayed for 14 days with the addition of retesting for four patients, and one patient was treated without delay but with additional infectious-disease precautions. CONCLUSIONS: Broad-based pretreatment asymptomatic testing of radiation oncology patients for SARS-CoV-2 is of limited value, even in a high-incidence region. Future strategies may include focused risk-stratified asymptomatic testing.
ABSTRACT
Estimating rates of COVID-19 infection and associated mortality is challenging due to uncertainties in case ascertainment. We perform a counterfactual time series analysis on overall mortality data from towns in Italy, comparing the population mortality in 2020 with previous years, to estimate mortality from COVID-19. We find that the number of COVID-19 deaths in Italy in 2020 until September 9 was 59,000-62,000, compared to the official number of 36,000. The proportion of the population that died was 0.29% in the most affected region, Lombardia, and 0.57% in the most affected province, Bergamo. Combining reported test positive rates from Italy with estimates of infection fatality rates from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, we estimate the infection rate as 29% (95% confidence interval 15-52%) in Lombardy, and 72% (95% confidence interval 36-100%) in Bergamo.