Serological prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibody among children and young age group (between 2 and 17 years) in India: An interim result from a large multicentric population-based seroepidemiological study

  1. Puneet Misra
  2. Shashi Kant
  3. Randeep Guleria
  4. Sanjay K. Rai
  5. Surekha Kishore
  6. Subrata Baidya
  7. Arvind Kumar Singh
  8. Palanivel Chinnakali
  9. Guruprasad R. Medigeshi
  10. Pradeep Kumar Chaturvedi
  11. Hari Shanker Joshi
  12. Suprakash Mandal
  13. Meenu Sangral
  14. Kapil Yadav
  15. Mohan Bairwa
  16. Partha Haldar
  17. Priyanka Kardam
  18. Sharanabasava Patil
  19. Shreya Jha

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Abstract

Background:

Estimating seroepidemiolgical prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibody is an essential public health strategy. There is insufficient evidence of prevalence among those belonging to young age population in India.

Objective:

To compare the SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity rate between children and adults in selected sites from India.

Materials and Methods:

This was a multicentric population-based seroepidemiological study conducted in selected urban and rural areas of five sites selected from four states (Delhi, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Tripura) of India. Participants aged ≥1 year were included from different clusters of each area. Total serum antibody against SARS-CoV-2 virus was assessed qualitatively by using a standard enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit.

Results:

Data collection period was from 15 March 2021 to 10 June 2021. Total available data was of 4509 participants, of whom 700 were <18 years of age and 3809 were ≥18 years of age. The site-wise number of available data among those aged 2–17 years was 92, 189, 165, 146 and 108 for the sites of Delhi urban, Delhi rural, Bhubaneswar rural, Gorakhpur rural and Agartala rural area, respectively. The seroprevalence was 55.7% in the <18 years age group and 63.5% in the ≥18 years age group. The prevalence among female children was 58% and among male children was 53%.

Conclusion:

SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity rate among children was high and comparable to that of the adult population. Hence, it is unlikely that any future third wave by prevailing SARS-CoV-2 variant would disproportionately infect children 2 years or older.

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  1. Version published to 10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_2274_21
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.06.15.21258880: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: The study was approved by the Institutional ethics committee of AIIMS, New Delhi and all other participating institutions.
    Consent: Informed consent was obtained from all the participants and the samples were collected maintaining all recommended SOPs.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    RandomizationIn each study site, all family members of ≥2 years of age from at least 10 consecutive families were included from each of the 25 randomly selected clusters assuming four participants per family, if we could not get 40 participants in 10 houses we kept on going until sample of 40 in that cluster was achieved.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Data Analysis: The data were extracted in Microsoft excel and analysed in Stata V12.
    Microsoft excel
    suggested: (Microsoft Excel, RRID:SCR_016137)

    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:
    Limitation: The sampling method was cluster sampling. In Delhi urban, we had purposively selected an urban resettlement colony. This area had high population density inhabited mostly by lower socio-economic population. Therefore, it is not representative of Delhi urban population as a whole. At all other sites, clusters were selected randomly. Participation was voluntary in our study. Secondly, we did not perform neutralizing antibody assay for all these samples that would have helped to interpret the significance of sero-positivity. Conclusion: SARS-CoV-2 sero-positivity rate among children was high and comparable to the adult population. Hence, it is unlikely that any future third wave by prevailing COVID-19 variant would disproportionately affect children two years or older.

    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    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 10.1101/2021.06.15.21258880v1 on medRxiv