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. 2022 Feb 28:8:735821.
doi: 10.3389/fmed.2021.735821. eCollection 2021.

High SARS-CoV-2 Infection Rates Among Special Forces Police Units During the Early Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ecuador

Esteban Ortiz-Prado  1 , Felipe Andrade  1 , Eduardo Vasconez  1 , Cristina Escobar-Espinosa  1 , Alexander Paolo Vallejo-Janeta  1   2 , Byron Freire-Paspuel  2 , Barbara Coronel  2 , Heberson Galvis  2 , Diana Morales-Jadan  1   2 , Ismar A Rivera-Olivero  1 , Tannya Lozada  2 , Aquiles R Henriquez-Trujillo  1 , Miguel Angel Garcia-Bereguiain  1 ; UDLA-COVID-19 Team
Collaborators, Affiliations

High SARS-CoV-2 Infection Rates Among Special Forces Police Units During the Early Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ecuador

Esteban Ortiz-Prado et al. Front Med (Lausanne). .

Abstract

Background: At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, health workers and first-responders, such as police officers, were in charge of trying to contain a disease that was unknown at that time. The lack of information and the tremendous need to contain new outbreaks put police officers at higher risk.

Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted to describe SARS-CoV-2 infection rates among Police Special Forces Officers in Quito, Ecuador. In this study, 163 community-dwelling police officers from elite divisions voluntarily participated in our SARS-CoV-2 detection program using reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR).

Results: A total of 20 out of 163 police officers tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, yielding an infection rate of 12.3%. Within this cohort, 10% (2/20) of SARS-CoV-2 positive individuals were potentially super spreaders with viral loads over 108 copies/ul. About 85% of the SARS-CoV-2 positive individuals were asymptomatic and 15% reported mild symptoms related to COVID-19.

Conclusions: We found a high SARS-CoV-2 infection rate within the special forces police officers that, beyond a high health risk for themselves, their families, and coworkers. Our results point out the need for permanent SARS-CoV-2 testing among asymptomatic essential workers and first-responders to avoid local outbreaks and to prevent work-place absenteeism among police special units.

Keywords: Ecuador; RT-PCR; SARS-CoV-2; police; surveillance.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Map location of the population of study: 163 special forces police officers located in Quito, the capital city of Ecuador in the province of Pichincha (Highlands or Andean Region).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Diagram showing the protocol for viral load calculation in our study using 2019-nCoV N positive control (IDT, IA, USA). The reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) curves and regression plots are real ones for N1 and N2 viral targets for samples included in this study.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Age and sex distribution for SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR positive tests among the 163 special forces police officers included in the study (Viral load is expressed as log10 copies/ml).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Viral load distribution for SARS-CoV-2 police officers according to sex (A) and age groups (B).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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