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. 2021 Mar;93(3):1739-1742.
doi: 10.1002/jmv.26425. Epub 2020 Aug 26.

Results from a survey in healthy blood donors in South Eastern Italy indicate that we are far away from herd immunity to SARS-CoV-2

Josè Ramòn Fiore  1 , Michele Centra  2 , Armando De Carlo  3 , Tommaso Granato  2 , Annamaria Rosa  3 , Michelina Sarno  2 , Lucia De Feo  2 , Mariantonietta Di Stefano  1 , Maria D' Errico  1 , Sergio Lo Caputo  1 , Rosella De Nittis  4 , Fabio Arena  4 , Gaetano Corso  5 , Maurizio Margaglione  6 , Teresa Antonia Santantonio  1
Affiliations

Results from a survey in healthy blood donors in South Eastern Italy indicate that we are far away from herd immunity to SARS-CoV-2

Josè Ramòn Fiore et al. J Med Virol. 2021 Mar.

Abstract

Here we present results from a survey on anti-severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) seroprevalence in healthy blood donors from a low incidence coronavirus disease 2019 area (Apulia region, South Eastern Italy). Among 904 subjects tested, only in nine cases (0.99%) antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 were demonstrated. All the nine seropositive patients were negative for the research of viral RNA by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction in nasopharyngeal swabs. These data, along with those recently reported from other countries, clearly show that we are very far from herd immunity and that the containment measures are at the moment the only realistic instrument we have to slow the spread of the pandemic.

Keywords: SARS coronavirus; humoral immunity; immune responses; public policy; social science; virus classification.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflict of interests.

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