COVID-19 en los trabajadores de salud del Instituto Autónomo Hospital Universitario de Los Andes en Mérida, Venezuela

ABSTRACT

In December 2019, the coronavirus disease COVID-19 began in China. Since then, millions of infections and deaths from this cause have been reported worldwide, particularly among health workers who have suffered the harsh onslaught of the pandemic in the context of healthcare systems collapsed by demand. In this sense, the objective of this work was to determine the prevalence, sociodemographic, epidemiological, and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 present in health workers of the "Instituto Aut..nomo Hospital Universitario de Los Andes" in M..rida-Venezuela. An observational, retrospective, single-center, documentary study was carried out, where 297 clinical-epidemiological records corresponding to 285 health workers were analyzed, in a period between March 16 and November 30, 2020. The records were separated into two groups, front-line workers and support workers. The overall positivity of the RT-PCRs performed was 31.6%. The frequency of positive confirmatory results was highest among support workers at 33.9%. Nursing staff had the highest positivity (39.5%). A seroprevalence of 34.3% was found in immunological tests. The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection among health care workers was higher among support workers compared to front-line workers. Therefore, general and work-specific prevention strategies should be strengthened to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2 among staff to ensure that they perform safely and effectively.