Sustained COVID-19 community transmission and potential super spreading events at neglected afro-ecuadorian communities assessed by massive RT-qPCR and serological testing of community dwelling population

Autor: Alexander Paolo Vallejo-Janeta, Diana Morales-Jadan, Maria Belen Paredes-Espinosa, Barbara Coronel, Heberson Galvis, Hugo Renato Bone-Guano, Belen Amador Rodriguez, Guadalupe Gomez Abeledo, Byron Freire-Paspuel, Esteban Ortiz-Prado, Ismar Rivera-Olivero, Aquiles Rodrigo Henriquez-Trujillo, Tannya Lozada, Miguel Angel Garcia Bereguiain, the UDLA COVID-19 Team, Tatiana Jaramillo, Daniela Santander Gordon, Gabriel Alfredo Iturralde, Julio Alejandro Teran, Karen Marcela Vasquez, Jonathan Dario Rondal, Genoveva Granda, Ana Cecilia Santamaria, Cynthia Lorena Pino, Oscar Lenin Espinosa, Angie Buitron, David Sanchez Grisales, Karina Beatriz Jimenez, Vanessa Bastidas, Dayana Marcela Aguilar, Ines Maria Paredes, Christian David Bilvao, Sebastian Rodriguez Pazmiño, Juan Carlos Laglaguano, Henry Herrera, Pablo Marcelo Espinosa, Edison Andres Galarraga, Marlon Steven Zambrano-Mila, Ana Maria Tito, Nelson David Zapata
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Frontiers in Medicine, Vol 9 (2022)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2296-858X
DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2022.933260
Popis: BackgroundNeglected ethnic minorities from underserved rural populations in Latin America are highly vulnerable to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) due to poor health infrastructure and limited access to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) diagnosis. Esmeraldas is a mainly rural province of the Coastal Region of Ecuador characterized by a high presence of Afro-Ecuadorian population living under poverty conditions.ObjectiveWe herein present a retrospective analysis of the surveillance SARS-CoV-2 testing in community-dwelling population from Esmeraldas carried out by our university laboratory in collaboration with regional health authorities during the first week of October 2020, in a region where no public SARS-CoV-2 detection laboratory was available at that time.ResultsA total number of 1,259 people were tested for SARS-CoV-2 by Reverse Transcription quantitative Polimerasa Chain Reaction (RT-qPCR), resulting in an overall infection rate of 7.7% (97/1259, 95% CI: [6.32–9.35%]) for SARS-CoV-2, up to 12.1% in some communities. Interestingly, community-dwelling super spreaders with viral loads over 108 copies/ml represented 6.2% of the SARS-CoV-2-infected population. Furthermore, anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG serological tests were applied to the same study group, yielding an overall seroprevalence of 11.68% (95% CI: [9.98–13.62%]) but as high as 24.47% at some communities.ConclusionThese results support active COVID-19 community transmission in Esmeraldas province during the first semester of the COVID-19 pandemic as it has been shown for other rural communities in the Ecuadorian Coastal Region.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals