Prospective surveillance study in a 1,400‐bed university hospital: COVID‐19 exposure at home was the main risk factor for SARS‐CoV‐2 point seroprevalence among hospital staff

Abstract

The Co‐HCW study is a prospective cohort study among hospital staff, including healthcare workers (HCWs) and administration staff, at the Jena University Hospital (JUH), Germany. The objectives of this study were to assess SARS‐CoV‐2 IgG seroprevalence, individual exposure risk factors and compliance of HCWs to wear personal protective equipment (PPE). After the first nosocomial COVID‐19 outbreak at JUH, mandatory masking was implemented on 20th March 2020. We evaluated point seroprevalence using two IgG detecting immunoassays and issued a questionnaire to assess COVID‐19 exposure, clinical symptoms and compliance to wear PPE. Antibody retesting was offered to participants with a divergent result of both immunoassays 5–10 weeks after the first test. Between 19th May and 19th June 2020, we analysed 660 participants [out of 3,228; 20.4%]. Among them, 212 participants (32.1%) had received a previous COVID‐19 test. Four of them (1.9%) reported a positive test result. After recruitment, 18 participants (2.7%) had SARS‐CoV‐2 antibodies in at least one immunoassay. Overall, 21 participants (3.2%) had any evidence of a past or current SARS‐CoV‐2 infection. Among them, 13 (61.9%) were not aware of direct COVID‐19 exposure and 9 (42.9%) did not report any clinical symptoms. COVID‐19 exposure at home (adjusted OR (aOR) with 95% CI: 47.82 (5.49, 416.62)) was associated with SARS‐CoV‐2 seroprevalence. We observed no evidence for an association between seroprevalence and exposure at work (aOR 0.48 (0.13, 1.70)) or with COVID‐19 risk area according to the working place (aOR for intermediate‐risk vs. high‐risk: 1.97 (0.42, 9.22), aOR for low‐risk versus high‐risk: 2.10 (0.40, 11.06); p = .655). Reported compliance of HCWs to wear PPE differed ( p < .001) between working in high‐risk (98.3%) and in intermediate‐risk areas (69.8%). In conclusion, compared to administration staff, we observed no additional risk to acquire SARS‐CoV‐2 infections by patient care, probably due to high compliance to wear PPE.

Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 Antibodies in Employees of Three Hospitals of a Secondary Care Hospital Network in Germany and an Associated Fire Brigade: Results of a Repeated Cross-Sectional Surveillance Study Over 1 Year

“…Looking at the risk to acquire the SARS-CoV-2 infection privately or at work, we may assume that the participating hospitals were probably no places of infectious spread to employees in the first pandemic wave. Some studies on HCWs in Germany also differentiated between seroprevalence rates according to the risk at work [14,21], and investigated highrisk group HCWs on ICU, the COVID-19 ward and emergency department [19,22,23,31]. All these studies found a low seroprevalence up to 4.36% [18] in the first pandemic wave.…”

“…Data from German HCWs are available from a variety of hospitals, but nearly all published data focus on the first pandemic wave [14][15][16][17][18][19][20] (Table 1). Two hospitals reported data until December 2020 [21,22], but no information for HCWs in Germany is available for the year 2021 so far.…”

Effect of nanocurcumin supplementation on the severity of symptoms and length of hospital stay in patients with COVID‐19: A randomized double‐blind placebo‐controlled trial

“…Twenty-four-item Wisconsin Upper Respiratory System Survey (WURSS-24), which is a valid instrument (Barrett et al, 2005) to evaluate the illness-specific quality of life and the negative impact of acute Upper Respiratory Tract Infection symptoms (URTIs), has been used for assessment in COVID-19 patients (Bahrs et al, 2021) (Holmes, Macfarlane, Macfarlane, & Hubbard, 2001). All patients were asked whether or not they experienced these symptoms during the study period.…”

Niedrige Inzidenz von SARS-CoV‑2-Infektionen bei Krankenhausmitarbeitern eines Maximalversorgers

“…Während einige Studien die Seroprävalenz als Punktprävalenz bestimmt haben [ 1 , 8 ], zeigt diese Studie die Seroprävalenz über den Zeitraum der ersten und zweiten Pandemiewelle in Deutschland bis zum Beginn von Impfungen gegen SARS-CoV‑2 auf. In einer kürzlich publizierten prospektiven Kohortenstudie [ 3 ] mit 17.383 Teilnehmern von Juni bis Dezember 2020 fand sich eine höhere Inzidenzdichte von 57,3 Infektionen pro 100.000 Personentage im Vergleich zu dieser Studie (16,8 Infektionen pro 100.000 Personentage).…”