Prevalence of IgG and IgM antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 among clinic staff and patients

  1. Marcus Inyama Asuquo
  2. Emmanuel Effa
  3. Akaninyene Otu
  4. Okokon Ita
  5. Ubong Udoh
  6. Victor Umoh
  7. Oluwabukola Gbotosho
  8. Anthonia Ikpeme
  9. Soter Ameh
  10. William Egbe
  11. Margaret Etok
  12. Jochen Guck
  13. Andrew Ekpenyong

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Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is now a pandemic with devastating social and economic consequences. The extent of the spread of COVID-19 within populations is uncertain since diagnostic tests have not been carried out on all eligible persons and doing such diagnostic tests on everyone is much less feasible in developing countries such as Nigeria. Tests for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, are more affordable, readily available, and require minimal training than current diagnostic tests. Employing a seroepidemiological strategy, serological tests were conducted on 66 volunteering staff and patients at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), a Federal Government owned tertiary healthcare facility, to determine the extent of exposure to SARS-CoV-2, from 17 th to 25 th June 2020. Using a COVID-19 IgG/IgM Rapid Test Cassette with emergency use authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the United States, it was observed that of the 66 samples tested, 5 (7.6%) were both IgG and IgM positive and 17 (26%) were IgG positive. Moreover, for 44 of the 66 participants, simultaneous tests were carried out using a rapid test kit from a different manufacturer but without FDA-EUA and all the results completely matched with the FDA-EUA kit, except one case where the FDA-EUA kit showed positive for both IgG and IgM while the other kit was positive only for IgM. The 26% positive IgG indicates a high exposure rate for the hospital staff and patients and points to community transmission where the facility is situated. Hence, immediate activation of WHO guidelines for controlling community transmission is called for. These results can further serve as a pilot study to guide public health policies in response to COVID-19 pandemic in both the general population and in healthcare settings.

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  1. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.02.20145441v2 on medRxiv
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.02.20145441: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: This study received ethical approval (UCTH/HREC/33/703) from the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital Health Research Ethics Committee.
    Consent: Informed consent was obtained from all participants via signing of the Informed Consent Form (Supplementary Information, SI I, II) after explaining the objectives of the study to them.
    RandomizationThe initial 66 participants were randomly sampled from volunteering staff and patients of the UCTH from 17th June to 25th June 2020.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableThey comprised of adults (>18 years of age), with 38 (58%) male and 28 (42%) female.

    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.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.02.20145441v1 on medRxiv