TY - JOUR
T1 - SARS-CoV-2 infection and antibody seroprevalence in routine surveillance patients, healthcare workers and general population in Kita region, Mali
T2 - an observational study 2020-2021
AU - Alber, Dagmar
AU - Haidara, Fadima Cheick
AU - Luoma, Juho
AU - Adubra, Laura
AU - Ashorn, Per
AU - Ashorn, Ulla
AU - Badji, Henry
AU - Cloutman-Green, Elaine
AU - Diallo, Fatoumata
AU - Ihamuotila, Rikhard
AU - Klein, Nigel
AU - Martell, Owen
AU - Onwuchekwa, Uma U.
AU - Samaké, Oumar
AU - Sow, Samba O.
AU - Traore, Awa
AU - Wilson, Kevin
AU - Ducker, Camilla
AU - Fan, Yue Mei
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding The study was funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, grant number INV-017141. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.
PY - 2022/6/16
Y1 - 2022/6/16
N2 - Objective To estimate the degree of SARS-CoV-2 transmission among healthcare workers (HCWs) and general population in Kita region of Mali. Design Routine surveillance in 12 health facilities, HCWs serosurvey in five health facilities and community serosurvey in 16 villages in or near Kita town, Mali. Setting Kita region, western Mali; local health centres around the central (regional) referral health centre. Participants Patients in routine surveillance, HCWs in local health centres and community members of all ages in populations associated with study health centres. Main outcome measures Seropositivity of ELISA test detecting SARS-CoV-2-specific total antibodies and real-time RT-PCR confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. Results From 2392 routine surveillance samples, 68 (2.8%, 95% CI: 2.2% to 3.6%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR. The monthly positivity rate was 0% in June-August 2020 and gradually increased to 6% by December 2020 and 6.2% by January 2021, then declined to 5.5%, 3.3%, 3.6% and 0.8% in February, March, April and May 2021, respectively. From 397 serum samples collected from 113 HCWs, 175 (44.1%, 95% CI: 39.1% to 49.1%) were positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. The monthly seroprevalence was around 10% from September to November 2020 and increased to over 40% from December 2020 to May 2021. For community serosurvey in December 2020, overall seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies was 27.7%. The highest age-stratified seroprevalence was observed in participants aged 60-69 years (45.5%, 95% CI: 32.3% to 58.6%). The lowest was in children aged 0-9 years (14.0%, 95% CI: 7.4% to 20.6%). Conclusions SARS-CoV-2 in rural Mali is much more widespread than assumed by national testing data and particularly in the older population and frontline HCWs. The observation is contrary to the widely expressed view, based on limited data, that COVID-19 infection rates were lower in 2020-2021 in West Africa than in other settings.
AB - Objective To estimate the degree of SARS-CoV-2 transmission among healthcare workers (HCWs) and general population in Kita region of Mali. Design Routine surveillance in 12 health facilities, HCWs serosurvey in five health facilities and community serosurvey in 16 villages in or near Kita town, Mali. Setting Kita region, western Mali; local health centres around the central (regional) referral health centre. Participants Patients in routine surveillance, HCWs in local health centres and community members of all ages in populations associated with study health centres. Main outcome measures Seropositivity of ELISA test detecting SARS-CoV-2-specific total antibodies and real-time RT-PCR confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. Results From 2392 routine surveillance samples, 68 (2.8%, 95% CI: 2.2% to 3.6%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 by RT-PCR. The monthly positivity rate was 0% in June-August 2020 and gradually increased to 6% by December 2020 and 6.2% by January 2021, then declined to 5.5%, 3.3%, 3.6% and 0.8% in February, March, April and May 2021, respectively. From 397 serum samples collected from 113 HCWs, 175 (44.1%, 95% CI: 39.1% to 49.1%) were positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. The monthly seroprevalence was around 10% from September to November 2020 and increased to over 40% from December 2020 to May 2021. For community serosurvey in December 2020, overall seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies was 27.7%. The highest age-stratified seroprevalence was observed in participants aged 60-69 years (45.5%, 95% CI: 32.3% to 58.6%). The lowest was in children aged 0-9 years (14.0%, 95% CI: 7.4% to 20.6%). Conclusions SARS-CoV-2 in rural Mali is much more widespread than assumed by national testing data and particularly in the older population and frontline HCWs. The observation is contrary to the widely expressed view, based on limited data, that COVID-19 infection rates were lower in 2020-2021 in West Africa than in other settings.
KW - COVID-19
KW - epidemiology
KW - respiratory infections
U2 - 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-060367
DO - 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-060367
M3 - Article
C2 - 35710236
AN - SCOPUS:85132081278
SN - 2044-6055
VL - 12
JO - Bmj Open
JF - Bmj Open
IS - 6
M1 - e060367
ER -