Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Jul;81(1):179-182.
doi: 10.1016/j.jinf.2020.03.040. Epub 2020 Apr 10.

Household transmission of SARS-CoV-2

Zhongliang Wang  1 , Wanli Ma  2 , Xin Zheng  3 , Gang Wu  1 , Ruiguang Zhang  4
Affiliations

Household transmission of SARS-CoV-2

Zhongliang Wang et al. J Infect. 2020 Jul.

Abstract

Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused an epidemic in China and many other countries. Many infected clusters have been found within familial households, but the data about secondary transmission among household contacts is limited.

Methods: In this retrospective case series, we enrolled 85 patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 and their household members in Wuhan. Patients were confirmed infected with SARS-CoV-2 by real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays on throat swabs. Epidemiological, clinical and laboratory data of the household members were collected.

Results: There were 155 close contacts in total. 104 contacts received RT-PCR assays, with 47 (30%) positive cases and 57 (37%) negative cases. 51 (33%) cases did not received RT-PCR tests for they showed no symptoms of pneumonia during the 2 weeks of quarantine. The infection rate of close contacts was 38% for households with 1 contact, 50% for households with 2 contacts, and 31% for households with 3 contacts.

Conclusions: The rate of secondary transmission among household contacts of patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection was 30%. Our data provide insight into the rate of secondary transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in home.

Keywords: Household; SARS-CoV-2; Transmission; Wuhan.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest We declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The procedure of this study. Legend: 85 confirmed patients of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) were enrolled. Related to these cases, 85 households were enrolled as one household per index patient, with a total of 155 household contacts. 104 cases received real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays on throat swabs. 47 cases were positive, and 57 cases were negative. 51 cases did not receive RT-PCR tests for they had no symptoms of pneumonia during quarantine of at least two weeks.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Epidemic distribution of the confirmed cases with coronavirus disease 2019 by onset of illness. Legend: Daily numbers of confirmed cases with coronavirus disease 2019 are plotted by date of onset of symptoms (n=132). Case 1 refers to the first infected case in a household, and the rest cases could be interpreted in the same manner.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Perlman S. Another decade, another coronavirus. N Engl J Med. 2020;382(8):760–762. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lu R., Zhao X., Li J., Niu P., Yang B., Wu H. Genomic characterisation and epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus: implications for virus origins and receptor binding. Lancet. 2020;395(10224):565–574. (London, England) - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wang D., Hu B., Hu C., Zhu F., Liu X., Zhang J. Clinical characteristics of 138 hospitalized patients with 2019 novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia in Wuhan, China. Jama. 2020 [Online ahead of print] - PMC - PubMed
    1. Holshue M.L., DeBolt C., Lindquist S., Lofy K.H., Wiesman J., Bruce H. First case of 2019 novel coronavirus in the United States. N Engl J Med. 2020 doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2001191. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Yoo J.H., Hong S.T. The outbreak cases with the novel coronavirus suggest upgraded quarantine and Isolation in Korea. J Korean Med Sci. 2020;35(5) e62-e. - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms