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[Preprint]. 2020 Jul 10:2020.07.08.20149179.
doi: 10.1101/2020.07.08.20149179.

SARS-CoV-2 Seroprevalence Among Parturient Women

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SARS-CoV-2 Seroprevalence Among Parturient Women

Dustin D Flannery et al. medRxiv. .

Update in

  • SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence among parturient women in Philadelphia.
    Flannery DD, Gouma S, Dhudasia MB, Mukhopadhyay S, Pfeifer MR, Woodford EC, Gerber JS, Arevalo CP, Bolton MJ, Weirick ME, Goodwin EC, Anderson EM, Greenplate AR, Kim J, Han N, Pattekar A, Dougherty J, Kuthuru O, Mathew D, Baxter AE, Vella LA, Weaver J, Verma A, Leite R, Morris JS, Rader DJ, Elovitz MA, Wherry EJ, Puopolo KM, Hensley SE. Flannery DD, et al. Sci Immunol. 2020 Jul 29;5(49):eabd5709. doi: 10.1126/sciimmunol.abd5709. Sci Immunol. 2020. PMID: 32727884 Free PMC article.

Abstract

Limited data are available for pregnant women affected by SARS-CoV-2. Serological tests are critically important to determine exposure and immunity to SARS-CoV-2 within both individuals and populations. We completed SARS-CoV-2 serological testing of 1,293 parturient women at two centers in Philadelphia from April 4 to June 3, 2020. We tested 834 pre-pandemic samples collected in 2019 and 15 samples from COVID-19 recovered donors to validate our assay, which has a ~1% false positive rate. We found 80/1,293 (6.2%) of parturient women possessed IgG and/or IgM SARS-CoV-2-specific antibodies. We found race/ethnicity differences in seroprevalence rates, with higher rates in Black/non-Hispanic and Hispanic/Latino women. Of the 72 seropositive women who also received nasopharyngeal polymerase chain reaction testing during pregnancy, 46 (64%) were positive. Continued serologic surveillance among pregnant women may inform perinatal clinical practices and can potentially be used to estimate seroprevalence within the community.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Geographical distribution of women tested for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.
Most serum specimens analyzed were from women living in areas within or immediately bordering the city of Philadelphia. Location of birth hospitals where serum samples were collected are shown as red crosses.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Serum SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels in COVID-19 pandemic and pre-pandemic individuals.
(A-B) Relative levels of SARS-CoV-2 IgG (A) and IgM (A) in serum collected before the COVID-19 pandemic (n = 834) and serum collected from COVID-19 recovered donors (n = 15). (C-D) Relative levels of SARS-CoV-2 IgG (C) and IgM (D) in serum collected from pregnant women from 2009-2012 (n = 140) and from April 4-June 3, 2020 (n = 1,293). Dashed lines indicate 0.48 arbitrary units, which was used to distinguish positive versus negative samples (see Methods). Serum samples that were below the cutoff for seropositivity were assigned an antibody level of 0.40 arbitrary units.

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