Antibodies Against SARS-CoV-2 among High-Risk Groups: Findings from Serosurveys in 6 Urban Areas of Odisha, India [post]

Srikanta Kanungo, Sidhartha Giri, Debdutta Bhattacharya, Jaya Singh Kshatri, Subrata Kumar Palo, Debaprasad Parai, Jyotirmayee Turuk, Ira Praharaj, Asit Mansingh, Girish Chandra Dash, Hari Ram Choudhary, Shakti Ranjan Barik (+7 others)
2021 unpublished
Background: Personnel involved in essential services or residing in high risk areas during the COVID-19 pandemic are at increased risk of getting infected, and higher infection rates among such personnel can paralyze these services due to shortage of staff. Evaluating the proportion of personnel infected can be done using seroprevalence studies or serosurveys.Methods: During July to November, 2020, individuals from multiple high risk groups in 6 urban centres in the state of Odisha, India,
more » ... included health care workers, police personnel, municipality/ sanitation staff, residents of urban slums, vendors, press staff, and prisoners, were recruited into the study after obtaining written informed consent. Blood samples collected from the study participants were tested for IgG antibodies against COVID-19 in Roche Cobas e441. Information on socio-demographic variables, association with a confirmed or suspected case, symptoms profile of individuals within 30 days, travel and history of testing for COVID-19 were collected. All the statistical analyses were performed using STATA 16.0 (Stata corp., Texas). A P value ≤ 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Of the 5434 individuals included in the final analysis, the overall COVID-19 seroprevalence was found to be 34.9% (95% CI 33.6-36.2). The seroprevalence varied from 21.8% (95% CI 19.6-24.1) in Rourkela to 54.9% (95% CI 51.5-58.2) in Bhubaneswar. Seropositivity was maximum among prisoners (47.7%, 138/289), followed by municipality/ sanitation staff (43.5%, 330/758), other office going staff (40.8%, 183/448), slum residents and vendors (39.8%, 252/633), police personnel (38.3%, 354/922), health care workers (27.1%, 536/1977), press staff (27.2%, 18/66) and residents of containment zones (25.2%, 86/341). On multivariate logistic regression, participants aged 18-29 years, 30-44 years, residents of slums and vending zone, municipality staffs, prisoners, residents of urban sites Malkangiri, Cuttack, Paralakhemundi and Bhubaneswar and those with previous history of confirmed COVID-19 were found to be independent co-relates of seropositivity.Conclusions: Risk of COVID-19 infection varied among the various high risk groups of Odisha. Periodic seroprevalence studies in future is essential to protect personnel involved in frontline activities during the ongoing pandemic.
doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-664559/v1 fatcat:wnis76cq5zbjzerhsduyprmx6a