COVID-19 seroprevalence among hospital staff and preprocedural patients in Thai community hospitals: a cross-sectional study.
BMJ Open
; 11(10): e046676, 2021 10 29.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1495458
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES:
We aimed to explore the seroprevalence of hospital staff comparing to preprocedural patients in Thai community hospitals to shed light on the situation of COVID-19 infection of frontline healthcare workers in low infection rate countries where mass screening was not readily available.DESIGN:
Cross-sectional study.SETTING:
52 community hospitals in 35 provinces covered all regions of Thailand.PARTICIPANTS:
857 participants consisted of 675 hospital staff and 182 preprocedural patients. OUTCOMEMEASURE:
COVID-19 seroprevalence using a locally developed rapid IgM/IgG test kitRESULTS:
Overall, 5.5% of the participants (47 of 857) had positive IgM, 0.2% (2 of 857) had positive IgG which both of them also had positive IgM. Hospitals located in the central part of Thailand had the highest IgM seroprevalence (11.9%). Preprocedural patients had a higher rate of positive IgM than the hospital staff (12.1% vs 3.7%). Participants with present upper respiratory tract symptoms had a higher rate of positive IgM than those without (9.6% vs 4.5%). Three quarters (80.5%, 690 of 857) of the participants were asymptomatic, of which, 31 had positive IgM (4.5%) which consisted of 20 of 566 healthcare workers (3.5%) and 11 of 124 preprocedural patients (8.9%).CONCLUSIONS:
COVID-19 antibody test could detect a substantial number of potential silent spreaders in Thai community hospitals where the nasopharyngeal PCR was not readily available, and the antigen test was prohibited. Antibody testing should be encouraged for mass screening in a limited resource setting, especially in asymptomatic individuals. TRIAL REGISTRATION TCTR20200426002.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
Type of study:
Diagnostic study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Asia
Language:
English
Journal:
BMJ Open
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Bmjopen-2020-046676
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