Seroprevalence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 among health care workers in a large Spanish reference hospital
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Abstract
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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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.27.20082289: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: After obtaining written informed consent, we filled out a standardized electronic questionnaire programmed in REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture)14 for each participant, with the following information: demographics (age, sex, household size, etc.), professional information (occupation, hospital department, shift), clinical information such as history of COVID-19-compatible symptoms during the previous month (cough, sore throat,
IACUC: Laboratory procedures: Ethical considerations: The protocol and informed consent form were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at HCB (CEIm) prior to study implementation (Ref number: …SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.27.20082289: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement Consent: After obtaining written informed consent, we filled out a standardized electronic questionnaire programmed in REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture)14 for each participant, with the following information: demographics (age, sex, household size, etc.), professional information (occupation, hospital department, shift), clinical information such as history of COVID-19-compatible symptoms during the previous month (cough, sore throat,
IACUC: Laboratory procedures: Ethical considerations: The protocol and informed consent form were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at HCB (CEIm) prior to study implementation (Ref number: HCB/2020/0336).
IRB: Laboratory procedures: Ethical considerations: The protocol and informed consent form were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at HCB (CEIm) prior to study implementation (Ref number: HCB/2020/0336).Randomization Study design, population and setting: The study design consists of a series of four cross-sectional surveys (at baseline, 1 month, 6 months and 12 months) in a cohort of randomly selected HCW from Hospital Clínic of Barcelona (HCB). Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not detected. Table 2: Resources
Software and Algorithms Sentences Resources After obtaining written informed consent, we filled out a standardized electronic questionnaire programmed in REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture)14 for each participant, with the following information: demographics (age, sex, household size, etc.), professional information (occupation, hospital department, shift), clinical information such as history of COVID-19-compatible symptoms during the previous month (cough, sore throat, REDCapsuggested: (REDCap, RRID:SCR_003445)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:This study has several limitations. First, we collected data over a 12-day period, which, in the context of a rapidly growing epidemic, hinders its association to a specific date, with the prevalence having to be interpreted as the average prevalence over those 12 days. Second, we only collected nasopharyngeal samples (instead of oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal) from study participants for the molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Although this could reduce rRT-PCR sensitivity, there is evidence showing that nasopharyngeal samples have a higher positivity rate than oropharyngeal samples.36 Third, the invalid rRT-PCR results obtained from 43 (7.4%) of the nasopharyngeal swabs analyzed might have led to an under-estimation of overall prevalence of exposure to the virus. Fourth, seroprevalence was defined as positivity of any of the antibody isotypes (IgM, IgG, IgA), which maximized sensitivity rather than specificity. However, our Luminex assay validation showed excellent specificity for the three isotypes, thus, our potential overestimation of the true prevalence is likely to be minimized. Finally, our participation rate (74%) could have introduced selection bias in our sample. It could be that many of those refusing to participate might have had a characteristic associated to an increased risk of infection (being very busy at COVID-19 units, for example). Thus, the impact is potentially minimal, given the lack of association of this and most studied variables with our prima...
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.
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