Positivity of SARS-CoV-2, by RT-PCR among workers of a Public Hospital in the city of Santos, SP, Brazil 2020

  1. Marcos Montani Caseiro
  2. Monica Mazzurana
  3. Bruno Barreiro
  4. Estela Capelas Barbosa
  5. Antônio Pires Barbosa

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Abstract

Background

Infection with SARS-CoV-2, associated with severe respiratory symptoms, currently called COVID-19, represents one of the greatest health challenges of this century. Health professionals, as well as hospital workers, are the most vulnerable population for acquiring SARS-CoV-2 due to their greater proximity to sick patients, especially in specialized hospitals for the treatment of these patients.

Study Design

We ran a questionnaire by all the employees of a Public Service Hospital specialised in COVID-19 treatment (1307 employees), in the municipality of Santos, São Paulo, Brazil, who presented some symptoms compatible with COVID-19 and positive results by RT-PCR, in Oropharynx Swab collection. The questionnaire collected socio-demographic information, as well as data related to the work areas where they were divided into two groups: Employees at higher risk or those who directly deal with patients (914 employees or 69.9%) and lower risk for employees in the administrative area (393 employees or 30.1%).

Results

211 (16.1%) of the Hospital’s employees had to stop their work-related activities due to presenting positive RT-PCR. There were 39 (9.9%) positives in low risk areas and 172 (18.8%) positives in employees in high risk areas. Within the latter group, Nurses, Nursing Assistants and Doctors were the most frequently infected professionals. Regarding the symptoms of professionals positively diagnosed based on RT-PCR, the most frequent symptoms were body pain (83.4%); headache (80.6%); fever (57.8%) and dry cough (53.1%).

Conclusion

A high proportion of workers in COVID-19 specialized hospitals was infected by the virus, despite all the protective measures adopted, showing the high transmission capacity of this virus. Stricter individual protection measures among employees must be adopted.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.30.20143529: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: This study was submitted to the Ethics and Research Committee of Hospital Guilherme Álvaro, and approved under protocol number 4.045.803.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    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 10.1101/2020.06.30.20143529v1 on medRxiv