Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) among healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia: comparing case and control hospitals.

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Abstract

Healthcare workers (HCWs) stand at the frontline for fighting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This puts them at higher risk of acquiring the infection than other individuals in the community. Defining immunity status among health care workers is therefore of interest since it helps to mitigate the exposure risk. This study was conducted between May 20th and 30th, 2020. Eighty-five hospitals across Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were divided into 2 groups: COVID-19 referral hospitals are those to which RT-PCR-confirmed COVID-19 patients were admitted or referred for management (Case-hospitals). COVID-19 nonaffected hospitals where no COVID-19 patients had been admitted or managed and no HCW outbreak (Control hospitals). Next, seroprevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 among HCWs was evaluated; there were 12,621 HCWs from the 85 hospitals. There were 61 case-hospitals with 9379 (74.3%) observations, and 24 control-hospitals with 3242 (25.7%) observations. The overall positivity rate by the immunoassay was 299 (2.36%) with a significant difference between the case-hospital (2.9%) and the control-group (0.8%) (P value <0.001). There was a wide variation in the positivity rate between regions and/or cities in Saudi Arabia, ranging from 0% to 6.31%. Of the serology positive samples, 100 samples were further tested using the SAS2pp neutralization assay; 92 (92%) samples showed neutralization activity. The seropositivity rate in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is low and varies across different regions with higher positivity in case-hospitals than control-hospitals. The lack of neutralizing antibodies (NAb) in 8% of the tested samples could mean that assay is a more sensitive assay or that neutralization assay has a lower detection limits; or possibly that some samples had cross-reaction to spike protein of other coronaviruses in the assay, but these were not specific to neutralize severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

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Seroprevalence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 among health care workers in a large Spanish reference hospital

Alberto García-Basteiro, Gemma Moncunill, Marta Tortajada … (2020)

Health care workers (HCW) are a high-risk population to acquire SARS-CoV-2 infection from patients or other fellow HCW. This study aims at estimating the seroprevalence against SARS-CoV-2 in a random sample of HCW from a large hospital in Spain. Of the 578 participants recruited from 28 March to 9 April 2020, 54 (9.3%, 95% CI: 7.1–12.0) were seropositive for IgM and/or IgG and/or IgA against SARS-CoV-2. The cumulative prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection (presence of antibodies or past or current positive rRT-PCR) was 11.2% (65/578, 95% CI: 8.8–14.1). Among those with evidence of past or current infection, 40.0% (26/65) had not been previously diagnosed with COVID-19. Here we report a relatively low seroprevalence of antibodies among HCW at the peak of the COVID-19 epidemic in Spain. A large proportion of HCW with past or present infection had not been previously diagnosed with COVID-19, which calls for active periodic rRT-PCR testing in hospital settings.

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Protecting healthcare workers from SARS-CoV-2 infection: practical indications

Martina Ferioli, Cecilia Cisternino, Valentina Leo … (2020)

The World Health Organization has recently defined the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection a pandemic. The infection, that may cause a potentially very severe respiratory disease, now called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has airborne transmission via droplets. The rate of transmission is quite high, higher than common influenza. Healthcare workers are at high risk of contracting the infection particularly when applying respiratory devices such as oxygen cannulas or noninvasive ventilation. The aim of this article is to provide evidence-based recommendations for the correct use of “respiratory devices” in the COVID-19 emergency and protect healthcare workers from contracting the SARS-CoV-2 infection.

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Specific risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 transmission among health care workers in a university hospital

Guven Celebi, Nihal Piskin, Arzum Çelik Bekleviç … (2020)

Highlights • HCWs face a high risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission during serving health care • Transmission may also occur in non-medical areas while speaking or eating • Proper use of PPE and basic infection control precautions are essential

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis

Title: Diagnostic microbiology and infectious disease

Publisher: Elsevier BV

ISSN (Electronic): 1879-0070

ISSN (Print): 0732-8893

Publication date (Electronic): Mar 2021

Volume: 99

Issue: 3

Affiliations

[1 ] Executive Department of Global Health, Epidemiology, surveillance and preparedness affairs, Executive Department of Research, Saudi Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Electronic address: dr_al_serihi@hotmail.com.

[2 ] Executive Department of Global Health, Epidemiology, surveillance and preparedness affairs, Executive Department of Research, Saudi Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

[3 ] Infectious Disease Unit, Specialty Internal Medicine, and Quality and Patient Safety Departement, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; Infectious Disease Division, Department of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA; Infectious Disease Division, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA. Electronic address: jaffar.tawfiq@jhah.com.

[4 ] Vaccine Development Unit, Department of Infectious Disease Research, King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

[5 ] Department of medicine, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

[6 ] Infection and Control Department, Ministry of Health, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

[7 ] Public Health Lab, Saudi Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

[8 ] Vaccine Development Unit, Department of Infectious Disease Research, King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

[9 ] Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Vaccines and Immunotherapy Unit, King Fahd Medical Research Center, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

[10 ] Research department, College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

[11 ] Public Health, Ministry of Health, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

[12 ] Saudi Cenetr for Disease Control and Prevention, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

[13 ] Public Health Lab, Saudi Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.