COVID-19 experience: first Italian survey on healthcare staff members from a Mother-Child Research Hospital using combined molecular and rapid immunoassays test

  1. Manola Comar
  2. Marco Brumat
  3. Maria Pina Concas
  4. Giorgia Argentini
  5. Annamonica Bianco
  6. Livia Bicego
  7. Roberta Bottega
  8. Petra Carli
  9. Andrea Cassone
  10. Eulalia Catamo
  11. Massimiliano Cocca
  12. Massimo Del Pin
  13. Mariateresa Di Stazio
  14. Agnese Feresin
  15. Martina La Bianca
  16. Sara Morassut
  17. Anna Morgan
  18. Giulia Pelliccione
  19. Vincenzo Petix
  20. Giulia Ragusa
  21. Antonietta Robino
  22. Stefano Russian
  23. Beatrice Spedicati
  24. Sarah Suergiu
  25. Marianela Urriza
  26. Fulvia Vascotto
  27. Paola Toscani
  28. Giorgia Girotto
  29. Paolo Gasparini

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Abstract

The fast spread of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has become a global threat hitting the worldwide fragile health care system. In Italy, there is a continued COVID-19 growth of cases and deaths that requires control measures for the correct management of the epidemiological emergency. To contribute to increasing the overall knowledge of COVID-19, systematic tests in the general population are required.

Here, we describe the first Italian survey performed in 727 employees belonging to a Mother-Child Research hospital tested for both viral (nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs) and antibody presence. Individuals were divided into three risk categories (high, medium and low) according to their job activity. Only one subject was positive at the swab test while 17.2% of the cohort was positive for the presence of antibodies. Results highlighted that the presence of Positive antibodies is significantly associated with high and medium risk exposure occupation (p-value=0.026) as well as cold and conjunctivitis symptoms (p-value=0.016 and 0.042 respectively). Moreover, among healthcare professionals, the category of medical doctors showed a significant association with the presence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 (p-value=0.0127). Finally, we detected a rapid decrease in antibody intensity between two assessments performed within a very short period (p-value=0.009). Overall, the present study increases our knowledge of the epidemiological data of COVID-19 infection in Italy, suggesting a high prevalence of immune individuals (i.e. at least among at-risk categories) and the efficacy of the combined diagnostic protocol to monitor the possible outbreak.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.19.20071563: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: A written informed consent, prepared by the Chief Medical Officer team, has been obtained for each participant of the study.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    As regards the evaluation of the immune response against COVID-19, a comparison to choose the best rapid kit has been carried out comparing three commercially available ones: the Wantai SARS-CoV-2 Ab Rapid Test, (Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise, Beijing, China), the 2019-nCoV IgG/IgM Rapid Test Cassette (Acro Biotech, Rancho Cucamonga, CA, USA) and the SARS-CoV-2 IgM/IgG Antibody-Colloidal Gold-(KHB, Shanghai, P.R. CHINA).
    COVID-19
    suggested: None
    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    In addition, a simple quantification of the amount of the signal of antibodies in test has been performed using the Image J quantification tool (https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/docs/tools.html).
    Image J quantification tool
    suggested: None
    Statistical Analysis: All the statistical analyses were performed in R v3.5.0 (https://www.r-project.org/).
    https://www.r-project.org/
    suggested: (R Project for Statistical Computing, RRID:SCR_001905)

    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: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    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.

    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.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.04.19.20071563 on medRxiv