Seroprevalence and Risk Factors of SARS CoV-2 in Health Care Workers of Tertiary-Care Hospitals in the Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

  1. Mohsina Haq
  2. Asif Rehman
  3. Muhammad Noor
  4. Jawad Ahmad
  5. Junaid Ahmad
  6. Muhammad Irfan
  7. Saeed Anwar
  8. Sajjad Ahmad
  9. Said Amin
  10. Fawad Rahim
  11. Najib Ul Haq

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Abstract

Background

High number of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients has overburdened healthcare delivery system, particularly in low-income countries. In the recent past many studies from the developed countries have been published on the prevalence of SARS CoV-2 antibodies and the risk factors of COVID-19 in healthcare-workers but little is known from developing countries.

Methods

This cross-sectional study was conducted on prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibody and risk factors for seropositivity in HCWs in tertiary-care hospitals of Peshawar city, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province Pakistan.

Results

The overall seroprevalence of SARS CoV-2 antibodies was 30·7% (CI, 27·8–33·6) in 1011 HCWs. Laboratory technicians had the highest seropositivity (50·0%, CI, 31·8–68·1).

Risk analysis revealed that wearing face-mask and observing social-distancing within a family could reduce the risk (OR:0·67. p<0·05) and (OR:0·73. p<0·05) while the odds of seropositivity were higher among those attending funeral and visiting local-markets (OR:1·83. p<0·05) and (OR:1·66. p<0·01). In Univariable analysis, being a nursing staff and a paramedical staff led to higher risk of seropositivity (OR:1.58. p< 0·05), (OR:1·79. p< 0·05). Fever (OR:2·36, CI, 1·52– 3·68) and loss of smell (OR:2·95, CI: 1·46–5·98) were significantly associated with increased risk of seropositivity (p<0.01). Among the seropositive HCWs, 165 (53·2%) had no symptoms at all while 145 (46·8%) had one or more symptoms.

Conclusion

The high prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in HCWs warrants for better training and use of protective measure to reduce their risk. Early detection of asymptomatic HCWs may be of special importance because they are likely to be potential threat to others during the active phase of viremia.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.29.20203125: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: Data Collection procedure: The study was approved by Institutional Review Board of Prime Foundation Pakistan.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    Detection of SARS CoV-2 antibodies: The FDA approved kit was used for detection of Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies which has high specificity (100% and sensitivity (more than 98·8%) according to the manufacturers.10, however Public Health England estimated its specificity to be 100% but a sensitivity of 87%.
    Anti-SARS-CoV-2
    suggested: None
    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical Analysis: Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS v.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    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 10.1101/2020.09.29.20203125v1 on medRxiv