| Title: |
Active Surveillance of Asymptomatic, Presymptomatic, and Oligosymptomatic SARS-CoV-2-Infected Individuals in Communities Inhabiting Closed or Semi-closed Institutions |
| Authors: |
Ambrosis, Nicolás Martín; Aispuro, Pablo Martín; Belhart, Keila; Bottero, Daniela; Crisp, Renée Leonor; Dansey, María Virginia; Gabrielli, Magalí; Filevich, Oscar; Genoud, Valeria; Giordano, Alejandra; Lin, Min Chih; Lodeiro, Aníbal Roberto; Marceca, Felipe; Pregi, Nicolás; Remes Lenicov, Federico; Rocha Viegas, Luciana; Rudi, Erika; Solovey, Guillermo; Zurita, María Eugenia; Pecci, Adali; Etchenique, Roberto; Hozbor, Daniela Flavia |
| Publication Year: |
2021 |
| Collection: |
Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP): SeDiCI (Servicio de Difusión de la Creación Intelectual) |
| Subject Terms: |
Medicina; Ciencias Exactas; SARS-CoV-2; COVID-19; Coronavirus; pooling; RT-qPCR; asymptomatic |
| Description: |
Background: The high COVID-19 dissemination rate demands active surveillance to identify asymptomatic, presymptomatic, and oligosymptomatic (APO) SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals. This is of special importance in communities inhabiting closed or semi-closed institutions such as residential care homes, prisons, neuropsychiatric hospitals, etc., where risk people are in close contact. Thus, a pooling approach-where samples are mixed and tested as single pools-is an attractive strategy to rapidly detect APO-infected in these epidemiological scenarios. Materials and Methods: This study was done at different pandemic periods between May 28 and August 31 2020 in 153 closed or semi-closed institutions in the Province of Buenos Aires (Argentina). We setup pooling strategy in two stages: first a pool-testing followed by selective individual-testing according to pool results. Samples included in negative pools were presumed as negative, while samples from positive pools were re-tested individually for positives identification. Results: Sensitivity in 5-sample or 10-sample pools was adequate since only 2 Ct values were increased with regard to single tests on average. Concordance between 5-sample or 10-sample pools and individual-testing was 100% in the Ct ≤ 36. We tested 4,936 APO clinical samples in 822 pools, requiring 86-50% fewer tests in low-to-moderate prevalence settings compared to individual testing. Conclusions: By this strategy we detected three COVID-19 outbreaks at early stages in these institutions, helping to their containment and increasing the likelihood of saving lives in such places where risk groups are concentrated. ; Facultad de Ciencias Exactas ; Instituto de Biotecnologia y Biologia Molecular ; Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestales |
| Document Type: |
article in journal/newspaper |
| File Description: |
application/pdf |
| Language: |
English |
| Relation: |
http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/124522 |
| Availability: |
http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/124522 |
| Rights: |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ; Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.48303E4D |
| Database: |
BASE |