Half-Year Longitudinal Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2-Antibodies and Rule Compliance in German Hospital Employees

  1. Jonas Herzberg
  2. Tanja Vollmer
  3. Bastian Fischer
  4. Heiko Becher
  5. Ann-Kristin Becker
  6. Hany Sahly
  7. Human Honarpisheh
  8. Salman Yousuf Guraya
  9. Tim Strate
  10. Cornelius Knabbe

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Abstract

COVID-19, which is caused by SARS-CoV-2, is an occupational health risk, especially for healthcare employees due to their higher exposure and consequently higher risk of symptomatic and asymptomatic infections. This study was designed to determine the longitudinal seroprevalence of specific immunoglobulin-G (IgG) antibodies in employees in a hospital setting. All employees in a secondary care hospital, including healthcare and non-healthcare workers, were invited to participate in this single-center study. After an initial screening, a 6-month follow-up was carried out, which included serological examination for SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies and a questionnaire for self-reported symptoms, self-perception, and thoughts about local and national hygiene and pandemic plans. The seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies was 0.74% among 406 hospital employees (0.75% in healthcare workers, 0.72% in non-healthcare workers), initially recruited in April 2020, in their follow-up blood specimens in October 2020. In this study, 30.54% of the participants reported using the official German coronavirus mobile application and the majority were content with the local and national rules in relation to coronavirus-related restrictions. At the 6-month follow-up, the 0.74% seroprevalence was below the reported seroprevalence of 1.35% in the general German population. The prevalence in healthcare workers in direct patient care compared with that in workers without direct patient contact did not differ significantly. Further follow-up to monitor the seroprevalence in the high-risk healthcare sector during the ongoing global pandemic is essential.

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  1. Version published to 10.3390/ijerph182010972
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.29.21254538: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementConsent: Written and informed consent was given by all study participants prior to enrolment.
    IRB: Ethical approval: After approval by the Ethics Committee of the Medical Association Schleswig-Holstein, this trial was registered with the German Clinical Trial Register (DRKS00021270).
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Antibodies
    SentencesResources
    The antibody-testing was performed using the semiquantitative anti-SARS-CoV-2-ELISA (IgG) from Euroimmun (Lübeck, Germany) detecting the S1 domain of the SARS-CoV-2 spike-protein with, according to the manufacturer, a specificity of 99.0% and sensitivity of 93.8% after day 20 of infection.[
    anti-SARS-CoV-2-ELISA (IgG
    suggested: None
    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    21] All positive and equivocally positive results were verified using two different SARS-CoV-2-ELISA (IgG): one detecting the viral nucleocapsid using the Architect SARS-CoV-2 IgG (Abbott, Wiesbaden, Germany) and the second the LIAISON SARS-CoV-2 S1/S2 IgG assay (DiaSorin Deutschland GmbH, Dietzenbach, Germany) which detects the S1- and S2 domain of the viral spike protein.
    Abbott
    suggested: (Abbott, RRID:SCR_010477)
    Statistical analysis: Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics Version 25 (IBM Co., Armonk, NY, USA).
    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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Behrens et al. showed in their CoCo-trial a longitudinal prevalence of anti-SARS-CoV-2-IgG-antibodies of 1.86% within 6 weeks.[26] Comparing with our initial data from the initial 9 week phase of the study, we had shown a seroprevalence of 4.36% (with the limitation of different assays used in that evaluation).[20] The data presented here is comparable with the seroprevalence in the normal German population of around 0.91% between March and May 2020.[27] These rates are significantly lower than data reported by a population-based trial from Switzerland reporting a seroprevalence up to 10.6% in the same time period.[28] Following the large seroprevalence-study conducted by the Robert-Koch-Institute in blood donors, the seroprevalence within the German population is 1.35% in almost 50,000 tested blood samples.[29] As the seroprevalence correlates with the local infection rate, data from other regions around the world are difficult to compare. Table 3 provides an overview of seroprevalence studies amongst health care providers in European countries. Due to limitations in the study we were unable to assess possible infection routes, in order to evaluate if the prior infection was work-acquired or due to community exposures to SARS-CoV-2. Paderno et al. showed infection routes in HCW.[35] Self-perception and evaluation: Almost 40% of all participants reported symptoms suspicious for a potential SARS-CoV-2-infection, such as fever or cough. Due to the low PCR-positivity rate and se...

    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

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.03.29.21254538v1 on medRxiv