Cumulative seroprevalence among healthcare workers after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in El Salvador, Central America

  1. Yu Nakagama
  2. Maria-Virginia Rodriguez-Funes
  3. Rhina Dominguez
  4. Katherine-Sofia Candray-Medina
  5. Naoto Uemura
  6. Evariste Tshibangu-Kabamba
  7. Yuko Nitahara
  8. Natsuko Kaku
  9. Akira Kaneko
  10. Yasutoshi Kido

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Abstract

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  1. Version published to 10.1016/j.cmi.2022.06.020
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.02.06.22270565: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIACUC: The research was approved by the Osaka City University Institutional Ethics Committee (#2020-003) and the National Research Ethics Committee of El Salvador (#CNEIS/2020/029).
    IRB: The research was approved by the Osaka City University Institutional Ethics Committee (#2020-003) and the National Research Ethics Committee of El Salvador (#CNEIS/2020/029).
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Serological testing and case definition: Two chemiluminescent immunoassays, the Roche Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 assay (Roche, Basel, Switzerland) and the Abbott SARS-CoV-2 IgG II Quant (Abbott, Chicago, Illinois, USA), were performed concomitantly, in accordance with the manufacturers’ instructions.
    Abbott
    suggested: (Abbott, RRID:SCR_010477)
    Statistical analysis and artwork preparation were done using the GraphPad Prism software.
    GraphPad Prism
    suggested: (GraphPad Prism, RRID:SCR_002798)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Our study has several limitations. Firstly, upon estimating the impact of the pandemic on HCWs, we here adopted a rather conservative approach on case definition that shall minimize false-positive errors. Although this approach has performed well in previous seroprevalence surveys with excellent sensitivity/specificity, considering every individual with discordant immunoassay results as ‘seronegative’ may have led to false-negative interpretations and underestimation of seroprevalence in a high-prevalence cohort as the present one. The seropositivity rate was derived from a single institution survey and thus may not represent the general HCW population of the country. Secondly, our discussions regarding the site of SARS-CoV-2 transmission among HCWs, whether workplace or community, remains elusive due to the following constraints. The community’s seroprevalence data in El Salvador is still awaited in order to make direct comparisons with that of the HCWs. Transmission was also not directly monitored with molecular methods. Finally, the questionnaire was designed so as to limit the target of some selected queries; ‘presence/absence of COVID-19 symptoms’ were queried to those with documented infections. Collecting answers to this specific query exhaustively from every participant could have given us better estimates to the frequency of asymptomatic COVID-19 infections within the cohort. In conclusion, we discovered that SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity rate exceeded 50% among HCWs fro...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2022.02.06.22270565 on medRxiv