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 s

SUBMITTER: Chibwana MG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7402052 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature