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Demographic and risk characteristics of healthcare workers infected with SARS-CoV-2 from two tertiary care hospitals in the United Arab Emirates

BACKGROUND: Understanding the transmission dynamics of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection among healthcare workers (HCWs) and their social contacts is crucial to plan appropriate risk-reduction measures. AIM: To analyze the socio-demographic risk factors and trans...

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Autores principales: Nasa, Prashant, Modi, Payal, Setubal, Gladys, Puspha, Aswini, Upadhyay, Surjya, Talal, Syed Habib
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Baishideng Publishing Group Inc 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10075053/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37033144
http://dx.doi.org/10.5501/wjv.v12.i2.122
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author Nasa, Prashant
Modi, Payal
Setubal, Gladys
Puspha, Aswini
Upadhyay, Surjya
Talal, Syed Habib
author_facet Nasa, Prashant
Modi, Payal
Setubal, Gladys
Puspha, Aswini
Upadhyay, Surjya
Talal, Syed Habib
author_sort Nasa, Prashant
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Understanding the transmission dynamics of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection among healthcare workers (HCWs) and their social contacts is crucial to plan appropriate risk-reduction measures. AIM: To analyze the socio-demographic risk factors and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection among HCWs in two tertiary care hospitals in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. METHODS: The demographic and clinical characteristics were available for all HCWs in both facilities from the human resources department. A cross-sectional survey was conducted from January-April 2022 among HCWs who tested positive through Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction of the nasopharyngeal swab for SARS-CoV-2 between March 2020 and August 2021 in two tertiary-level hospitals. The survey included questions on demographics, work profile, characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and infection among their household or co-workers. The survey also checked the knowledge and perception of participants on the infection prevention measures related to SARS-CoV-2. RESULTS: Out of a total of 346 HCWs infected with SARS-CoV-2, 286 (82.7%) HCWs consented to participate in this study. From the sample population, 150 (52.5%) of participants were female, and a majority (230, 80.4%) were frontline HCWs, including 121 nurses (121, 42.4%). Only 48 (16.8%) participants were fully vaccinated at the time of infection. Most infected HCWs (85%) were unaware of any unprotected exposure and were symptomatic at the time of testing (225, 78.7%). Nearly half of the participants (140, 49%) had co-infection among household, and nearly one-third (29.5%) had co-infection among three or more household. Another 108 (37.8%) participants reported cross-infection among co-workers. The frontline HCWs were significantly more infected (25.1% vs 8.6%, P < 0.001) compared to non-frontline HCWs. Another significant risk factor for a high infection rate was male sex (P < 0.001). Among the infected frontline HCWs, a significantly higher proportion were male and shared accommodation with family (P < 0.001). COVID-19 vaccination significantly reduced the infection rate (83.2% vs 16.8, P < 0.001) among HCWs. Most participants (99.3%) were aware about importance of appropriate use of personal protective equipment. However, only 70% agreed with the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccination in preventing an infection and severe disease. CONCLUSION: The risk profiling of the HCWs infected with SARS-CoV-2 found that working at frontline and being male increase the rate of infection. COVID-19 vaccination can effectively reduce the rate of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among HCWs.
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spelling pubmed-100750532023-04-06 Demographic and risk characteristics of healthcare workers infected with SARS-CoV-2 from two tertiary care hospitals in the United Arab Emirates Nasa, Prashant Modi, Payal Setubal, Gladys Puspha, Aswini Upadhyay, Surjya Talal, Syed Habib World J Virol Observational Study BACKGROUND: Understanding the transmission dynamics of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection among healthcare workers (HCWs) and their social contacts is crucial to plan appropriate risk-reduction measures. AIM: To analyze the socio-demographic risk factors and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection among HCWs in two tertiary care hospitals in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. METHODS: The demographic and clinical characteristics were available for all HCWs in both facilities from the human resources department. A cross-sectional survey was conducted from January-April 2022 among HCWs who tested positive through Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction of the nasopharyngeal swab for SARS-CoV-2 between March 2020 and August 2021 in two tertiary-level hospitals. The survey included questions on demographics, work profile, characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and infection among their household or co-workers. The survey also checked the knowledge and perception of participants on the infection prevention measures related to SARS-CoV-2. RESULTS: Out of a total of 346 HCWs infected with SARS-CoV-2, 286 (82.7%) HCWs consented to participate in this study. From the sample population, 150 (52.5%) of participants were female, and a majority (230, 80.4%) were frontline HCWs, including 121 nurses (121, 42.4%). Only 48 (16.8%) participants were fully vaccinated at the time of infection. Most infected HCWs (85%) were unaware of any unprotected exposure and were symptomatic at the time of testing (225, 78.7%). Nearly half of the participants (140, 49%) had co-infection among household, and nearly one-third (29.5%) had co-infection among three or more household. Another 108 (37.8%) participants reported cross-infection among co-workers. The frontline HCWs were significantly more infected (25.1% vs 8.6%, P < 0.001) compared to non-frontline HCWs. Another significant risk factor for a high infection rate was male sex (P < 0.001). Among the infected frontline HCWs, a significantly higher proportion were male and shared accommodation with family (P < 0.001). COVID-19 vaccination significantly reduced the infection rate (83.2% vs 16.8, P < 0.001) among HCWs. Most participants (99.3%) were aware about importance of appropriate use of personal protective equipment. However, only 70% agreed with the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccination in preventing an infection and severe disease. CONCLUSION: The risk profiling of the HCWs infected with SARS-CoV-2 found that working at frontline and being male increase the rate of infection. COVID-19 vaccination can effectively reduce the rate of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among HCWs. Baishideng Publishing Group Inc 2023-03-25 2023-03-25 /pmc/articles/PMC10075053/ /pubmed/37033144 http://dx.doi.org/10.5501/wjv.v12.i2.122 Text en ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial.
spellingShingle Observational Study
Nasa, Prashant
Modi, Payal
Setubal, Gladys
Puspha, Aswini
Upadhyay, Surjya
Talal, Syed Habib
Demographic and risk characteristics of healthcare workers infected with SARS-CoV-2 from two tertiary care hospitals in the United Arab Emirates
title Demographic and risk characteristics of healthcare workers infected with SARS-CoV-2 from two tertiary care hospitals in the United Arab Emirates
title_full Demographic and risk characteristics of healthcare workers infected with SARS-CoV-2 from two tertiary care hospitals in the United Arab Emirates
title_fullStr Demographic and risk characteristics of healthcare workers infected with SARS-CoV-2 from two tertiary care hospitals in the United Arab Emirates
title_full_unstemmed Demographic and risk characteristics of healthcare workers infected with SARS-CoV-2 from two tertiary care hospitals in the United Arab Emirates
title_short Demographic and risk characteristics of healthcare workers infected with SARS-CoV-2 from two tertiary care hospitals in the United Arab Emirates
title_sort demographic and risk characteristics of healthcare workers infected with sars-cov-2 from two tertiary care hospitals in the united arab emirates
topic Observational Study
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10075053/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37033144
http://dx.doi.org/10.5501/wjv.v12.i2.122
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