Articles: sars-cov-2.
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To assess the protective effect of previous COVID-19 infection for healthcare workers in a high-prevalence setting. ⋯ Prior SARS-CoV-2 infection offers significant protection against reinfection and this protection lasts 4 months for the majority of individuals.
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Eur. J. Intern. Med. · Sep 2021
Observational StudyLaryngotracheal aspiration test reduce the false negative rate in patients with suspected SARS-COV-2 pneumonia despite a negative nasopharyngeal swab.
In the emergency department (ED) definitive diagnosis of SARS-COV-2 pneumonia is challenging as nasopharyngeal swab (NPS) can give false negative results. Strategies to reduce false negative rate of NPS have limitations. Serial NPSs (24-48 h from one another) are time-consuming, sputum can not be collected in the majority of patients, and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), the most sensitive test, requires specific expertise. Laryngotracheal aspiration (LTA) is easy to perform and showed a similar accuracy to BAL for diagnosis of other pulmonary diseases, however it was not studied to diagnose SARS-COV-2 pneumonia. ⋯ LTA resulted feasible, safe and reduced false negative rate in patients with suspected SARS-COV-2 pneumonia despite a negative NPS.
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J Infect Public Health · Sep 2021
Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 among high-risk healthcare workers in a MERS-CoV endemic area.
Healthcare workers (HCWs) in Saudi Arabia are a unique population who have had exposures to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). It follows that HCWs from this country could have pre-existingMERS-CoV antibodies that may either protect from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection or cause false SARS-CoV-2 seropositive results. In this article, we report the seroprevalence of MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 among high-risk healthcare workers in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia. ⋯ Our SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence results were higher than reported regional seroprevalence studies. This finding was expected and similar to other international findings that targeted high-risk HCWs. Our results provide evidence that the SARS-CoV-2- seropositivity in Saudi Arabia similar to other countries was due to exposure to SARS-CoV-2 rather than MERS-CoV antibody.
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As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and highly contagious nature of SARS-CoV-2, emergency departments (EDs) have been forced to implement new measures and protocols to minimize the spread of the disease within their departments. The primary objective of this study was to determine if the implementation of a designated COVID-19 cohort area (hot zone) within a busy ED mitigated the dissemination of SARS-CoV-2 throughout the rest of the department. ⋯ A designated COVID-19 cohort area resulted in no air or surface contamination outside of the hot zone, and only minimal air, but no surface contamination, within the hot zone.