Sustained COVID-19 community transmission and potential super spreading events at neglected afro-ecuadorian communities assessed by massive RT-qPCR and serological testing of community dwelling population.
Front Med (Lausanne)
; 9: 933260, 2022.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2022769
ABSTRACT
Background:
Neglected ethnic minorities from underserved rural populations in Latin America are highly vulnerable to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) due to poor health infrastructure and limited access to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) diagnosis. Esmeraldas is a mainly rural province of the Coastal Region of Ecuador characterized by a high presence of Afro-Ecuadorian population living under poverty conditions.Objective:
We herein present a retrospective analysis of the surveillance SARS-CoV-2 testing in community-dwelling population from Esmeraldas carried out by our university laboratory in collaboration with regional health authorities during the first week of October 2020, in a region where no public SARS-CoV-2 detection laboratory was available at that time.Results:
A total number of 1,259 people were tested for SARS-CoV-2 by Reverse Transcription quantitative Polimerasa Chain Reaction (RT-qPCR), resulting in an overall infection rate of 7.7% (97/1259, 95% CI [6.32-9.35%]) for SARS-CoV-2, up to 12.1% in some communities. Interestingly, community-dwelling super spreaders with viral loads over 108 copies/ml represented 6.2% of the SARS-CoV-2-infected population. Furthermore, anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG serological tests were applied to the same study group, yielding an overall seroprevalence of 11.68% (95% CI [9.98-13.62%]) but as high as 24.47% at some communities.Conclusion:
These results support active COVID-19 community transmission in Esmeraldas province during the first semester of the COVID-19 pandemic as it has been shown for other rural communities in the Ecuadorian Coastal Region.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Type of study:
Observational study
Language:
English
Journal:
Front Med (Lausanne)
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Fmed.2022.933260
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