Dataset Information

High SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in health care workers but relatively low numbers of deaths in urban Malawi.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In low-income countries, like Malawi, important public health measures including social distancing or a lockdown have been challenging to implement owing to socioeconomic constraints, leading to predictions that the COVID-19 pandemic would progress rapidly. However, due to limited capacity to test for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, there are no reliable estimates of the true burden of infection and death. We, therefore, conducted a SARS-CoV-2 serosurvey amongst health care workers (HCWs) in Blantyre city to estimate the cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in urban Malawi.

Methods

We recruited 500 otherwise asymptomatic HCWs from Blantyre City (Malawi) from 22^nd May 2020 to 19^th June 2020 and serum samples were collected from all participants. A commercial ELISA was used to measure SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies in serum.

Results

A total of 84 participants tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. The HCWs with positive SARS-CoV-2 antibody results came from different parts of the city. The adjusted seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies was 12.3% [CI 8.2 - 16.5]. Using age-stratified infection fatality estimates reported from elsewhere, we found that at the observed adjusted seroprevalence, the number of predicted deaths was eight times the number of reported deaths.

Conclusions

The high seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies among HCWs and the discrepancy in the predicted versus reported deaths suggests that there was early exposure but slow progression of COVID-19 epidemic in urban Malawi. This highlights the urgent need for development of locally parameterised mathematical models to more accurately predict the trajectory of the epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa for better evidence-based policy decisions and public health response planning.

SUBMITTER: Chibwana MG

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7402052 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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