Seroprevalence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 among public community and health-care workers in Alzintan City of Libya

  1. Abdulwahab M. Kammon
  2. Ali A. El-Arabi
  3. Esadk A. Erhouma
  4. Taha M. Mehemed
  5. Othman A. Mohamed

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Abstract

A study was conducted to determine the seroprevalence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 among public community and health care workers in Alzintan City, Libya. During the period from 2/4/2020 to 18/5/2020, a total of 219 blood samples were collected and analyzed for the presence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2. Collection of samples were divided in two categories; random samples from public community and samples from health care workers belonging to two Governmental hospitals and one private clinic. One Step Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) IgM/IgG Antibody Test was used. Out of the 219 samples tested, 6 (2.74%) samples were seropositive for SARS-CoV-2. All health-care workers were tested negative. All positive cases were females and 5 of them aged between 44 to 75 years and one aged 32 years. The prevalence in young females (≤40 years) was 1.4% in total young females tested in the study and 1.75% in young females taken from public community. The prevalence in older females aged (≤ 40 years), was 11.1% in total females tested and 13.9% in females taken from public community. In conclusion, the preliminary investigation of SARS-CoV-2 revealed considerable prevalence in Alzintan City although the disease seems to be in its mild form. Active surveillance studies with high number of samples using both virological and serological tests are in urgent need.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.25.20109470: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    RandomizationCollection of samples were divided in two categories; random samples from public community and samples from health-care workers belonging to two Governmental hospitals and one private clinic (Table 1).
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    Collection of samples: During the period from 2/4/2020 to 18/5/2020, a total of 219 blood samples were collected and analyzed for the presence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.
    SARS-CoV-2
    suggested: None
    Detection of IgM and IgG antibodies for SARS-CoV2: Blood samples were collected in tubes with clot activator.
    IgG
    suggested: None

    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 10.1101/2020.05.25.20109470v1 on medRxiv