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COVID-19 Infection among Elite Football Players: A Nationwide Prospective Cohort Study

Little is known about the risk of COVID-19 infection among footballers. We aimed to investigate the incidence and characteristics of COVID-19 infection among footballers. In total, 480 football players of Super League Greece and 420 staff members participated in a prospective cohort study, which too...

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Autores principales: Papagiannis, Dimitrios, Laios, Theodoros, Tryposkiadis, Konstantinos, Kouriotis, Konstantinos, Roussis, Xenophon, Basdekis, Georgios, Boudouris, Panagiotis, Cholevas, Christos, Karakitsios, Stergios, Kakavas, Pindaros, Kiriakidis, Theoharis, Kouloumentas, Panagiotis, Kouvidis, Georgios, Manoudis, Grigoris, Nikolaou, Pantelis, Theos, Christos, Piskopakis, Andreas-Nikolaos, Rallis, Ioannis, Ristanis, Stavros, Toliopoulos, Alexandros, Zisis, Grigoris, Theodorakis, Yiannis, Gourgoulianis, Konstantinos I., Rachiotis, Georgios
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9144666/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35632390
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10050634
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author Papagiannis, Dimitrios
Laios, Theodoros
Tryposkiadis, Konstantinos
Kouriotis, Konstantinos
Roussis, Xenophon
Basdekis, Georgios
Boudouris, Panagiotis
Cholevas, Christos
Karakitsios, Stergios
Kakavas, Pindaros
Kiriakidis, Theoharis
Kouloumentas, Panagiotis
Kouvidis, Georgios
Manoudis, Grigoris
Nikolaou, Pantelis
Theos, Christos
Piskopakis, Andreas-Nikolaos
Rallis, Ioannis
Ristanis, Stavros
Toliopoulos, Alexandros
Zisis, Grigoris
Theodorakis, Yiannis
Gourgoulianis, Konstantinos I.
Rachiotis, Georgios
author_facet Papagiannis, Dimitrios
Laios, Theodoros
Tryposkiadis, Konstantinos
Kouriotis, Konstantinos
Roussis, Xenophon
Basdekis, Georgios
Boudouris, Panagiotis
Cholevas, Christos
Karakitsios, Stergios
Kakavas, Pindaros
Kiriakidis, Theoharis
Kouloumentas, Panagiotis
Kouvidis, Georgios
Manoudis, Grigoris
Nikolaou, Pantelis
Theos, Christos
Piskopakis, Andreas-Nikolaos
Rallis, Ioannis
Ristanis, Stavros
Toliopoulos, Alexandros
Zisis, Grigoris
Theodorakis, Yiannis
Gourgoulianis, Konstantinos I.
Rachiotis, Georgios
author_sort Papagiannis, Dimitrios
collection PubMed
description Little is known about the risk of COVID-19 infection among footballers. We aimed to investigate the incidence and characteristics of COVID-19 infection among footballers. In total, 480 football players of Super League Greece and 420 staff members participated in a prospective cohort study, which took place from May 2020 to May 2021. Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from footballers and staff members weekly. All samples (n = 43,975) collected were tested using the reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test for the detection of “SARS-CoV-2”. In total, 190 positive cases (130 among professional football players and 60 among staff) were recorded. Out of the 190 cases that turned positive, 64 (34%) cases were considered as symptomatic, and 126 (66%) cases were asymptomatic. The incidence rate of a positive test result for footballers was 0.57% (confidence interval (CI) 0.48–0.68%) and for staff members it was 0.27% (CI 0.20%, 0.34%), respectively. Footballers recorded a twofold increased risk of COVID-19 infection in comparison to staff members (relative risk = 2.16; 95% CI = 1.59–2.93; p-value < 0.001). No significant transmission events were observed during the follow-up period. We found a low incidence of COVID-19 infection among professional footballers over a long follow-up period. Furthermore, the implementation of a weekly diagnostic testing (RT-PCR) was critical to break the transmission chain of COVID-19, especially among asymptomatic football players and staff members.
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spelling pubmed-91446662022-05-29 COVID-19 Infection among Elite Football Players: A Nationwide Prospective Cohort Study Papagiannis, Dimitrios Laios, Theodoros Tryposkiadis, Konstantinos Kouriotis, Konstantinos Roussis, Xenophon Basdekis, Georgios Boudouris, Panagiotis Cholevas, Christos Karakitsios, Stergios Kakavas, Pindaros Kiriakidis, Theoharis Kouloumentas, Panagiotis Kouvidis, Georgios Manoudis, Grigoris Nikolaou, Pantelis Theos, Christos Piskopakis, Andreas-Nikolaos Rallis, Ioannis Ristanis, Stavros Toliopoulos, Alexandros Zisis, Grigoris Theodorakis, Yiannis Gourgoulianis, Konstantinos I. Rachiotis, Georgios Vaccines (Basel) Brief Report Little is known about the risk of COVID-19 infection among footballers. We aimed to investigate the incidence and characteristics of COVID-19 infection among footballers. In total, 480 football players of Super League Greece and 420 staff members participated in a prospective cohort study, which took place from May 2020 to May 2021. Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from footballers and staff members weekly. All samples (n = 43,975) collected were tested using the reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test for the detection of “SARS-CoV-2”. In total, 190 positive cases (130 among professional football players and 60 among staff) were recorded. Out of the 190 cases that turned positive, 64 (34%) cases were considered as symptomatic, and 126 (66%) cases were asymptomatic. The incidence rate of a positive test result for footballers was 0.57% (confidence interval (CI) 0.48–0.68%) and for staff members it was 0.27% (CI 0.20%, 0.34%), respectively. Footballers recorded a twofold increased risk of COVID-19 infection in comparison to staff members (relative risk = 2.16; 95% CI = 1.59–2.93; p-value < 0.001). No significant transmission events were observed during the follow-up period. We found a low incidence of COVID-19 infection among professional footballers over a long follow-up period. Furthermore, the implementation of a weekly diagnostic testing (RT-PCR) was critical to break the transmission chain of COVID-19, especially among asymptomatic football players and staff members. MDPI 2022-04-19 /pmc/articles/PMC9144666/ /pubmed/35632390 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10050634 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Brief Report
Papagiannis, Dimitrios
Laios, Theodoros
Tryposkiadis, Konstantinos
Kouriotis, Konstantinos
Roussis, Xenophon
Basdekis, Georgios
Boudouris, Panagiotis
Cholevas, Christos
Karakitsios, Stergios
Kakavas, Pindaros
Kiriakidis, Theoharis
Kouloumentas, Panagiotis
Kouvidis, Georgios
Manoudis, Grigoris
Nikolaou, Pantelis
Theos, Christos
Piskopakis, Andreas-Nikolaos
Rallis, Ioannis
Ristanis, Stavros
Toliopoulos, Alexandros
Zisis, Grigoris
Theodorakis, Yiannis
Gourgoulianis, Konstantinos I.
Rachiotis, Georgios
COVID-19 Infection among Elite Football Players: A Nationwide Prospective Cohort Study
title COVID-19 Infection among Elite Football Players: A Nationwide Prospective Cohort Study
title_full COVID-19 Infection among Elite Football Players: A Nationwide Prospective Cohort Study
title_fullStr COVID-19 Infection among Elite Football Players: A Nationwide Prospective Cohort Study
title_full_unstemmed COVID-19 Infection among Elite Football Players: A Nationwide Prospective Cohort Study
title_short COVID-19 Infection among Elite Football Players: A Nationwide Prospective Cohort Study
title_sort covid-19 infection among elite football players: a nationwide prospective cohort study
topic Brief Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9144666/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35632390
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10050634
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