This article is a Preprint
Preprints are preliminary research reports that have not been certified by peer review. They should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Preprints posted online allow authors to receive rapid feedback and the entire scientific community can appraise the work for themselves and respond appropriately. Those comments are posted alongside the preprints for anyone to read them and serve as a post publication assessment.
Virological evidence of the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19 in a resource-limited setting (preprint)
medrxiv; 2023.
Preprint
in English
| medRxiv | ID: ppzbmed-10.1101.2023.03.01.23286616
ABSTRACT
Ecuador was an early COVID-19 hotspot with substantial COVID-19-mortality. In developed countries, low socioeconomic status is associated with COVID-19 infection and low compliance with non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). However, if NPI were successful in resource-limited settings with high human mobility and informal labour is still unclear. We performed a retrospective observational molecular and serological study of Ecuadors reference laboratory. We tested 1,950 respiratory samples from COVID-19 surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 and 12 respiratory viruses using RT-PCR, characterized 642 SARS-CoV-2 genomes, and examined SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in 1,967 samples from patients with fever in Ecuadors reference laboratory during 2020-2021. Molecular and serological data were compared to NPI stringency in Bayesian, maximum-likelihood and modelling frameworks. SARS-CoV-2 (Pearson correlation test; r=-0.74; p=0.01) and other respiratory viruses (r=-0.68; p=0.02) detection correlated negatively with NPI stringency. SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence increased from <1% during February-March 2020 to 50% within 6 weeks and plateaued after NPI implementation. Decrease of effective reproduction number <1 and antibody reactivity over time suggested intense SARS-CoV-2 transmission during pandemic onset, subsequently limited by NPIs. Phylogeographic analyses revealed that travel restrictions were implemented late not preventing 100 near-parallel SARS-CoV-2 introductions, and implementation of NPIs modified SARS-CoV-2 geographic spread by restricting recreational activity. NPIs stringency correlated negatively with the number of circulating SARS-CoV-2 lineages (r=-0.69; p=0.02). Virological evidence supports NPIs restricting human movement as an effective public health tool to control the spread of respiratory pathogens in resource-limited settings, providing a template for emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and future epidemics.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
Preprints
Database:
medRxiv
Main subject:
Fever
/
COVID-19
Language:
English
Year:
2023
Document Type:
Preprint
Similar
MEDLINE
...
LILACS
LIS