Asymptomatic surveillance testing for COVID-19 in health care professional students : lessons learned from a low prevalence setting
- DOI
- Language of the publication
- English
- Date
- 2023-03-29
- Type
- Article
- Author(s)
- Burrows, Alyssa G.
- Linton, Sophia
- Thiele, Jenny
- Sheth, Prameet M.
- Evans, Gerald A.
- Archer, Stephen
- Doliszny, Katharine M.
- Finlayson, Marcia
- Flynn, Leslie
- Huang, Yun
- Kasmani, Azim
- Guan, T. Hugh
- Maier, Allison
- Hansen-Taugher, Adrienne
- Moore, Kieran
- Sanfilippo, Anthony
- Snelgrove-Clarke, Erna
- Tripp, Dean A.
- Walker, David M. C.
- Vanner, Stephen
- Ellis, Anne K.
- Publisher
- BioMed Central Ltd.
Abstract
The novel coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has severely impacted the training of health care professional students because of concerns of potential asymptomatic transmission to colleagues and vulnerable patients. From May 27th, 2020, to June 23rd 2021; at a time when B.1.1.7 (alpha) and B.1.617.2 (delta) were the dominant circulating variants, PCR testing was conducted on 1,237 nasopharyngeal swabs collected from 454 asymptomatic health care professional students as they returned to their studies from across Canada to Kingston, ON, a low prevalence area during that period for COVID-19. Despite 46.7% of COVID-19 infections occurring in the 18–29 age group in Kingston, severe-acute-respiratory coronavirus-2 was not detected in any of the samples suggesting that negligible asymptomatic infection occurred in this group and that PCR testing in this setting may not be warranted as a screening tool.
Subject
- Health,
- Coronavirus diseases,
- Testing
Rights
Pagination
1-6
Peer review
Yes
Identifiers
- PubMed ID
- 36991486
- ISSN
- 1710-1492
Article
- Journal title
- Allergy, Asthma & Clinical Immunology
- Journal volume
- 19
- Article number
- 25
Sponsors
This project was supported by funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada, through the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force. Additional funding was recieved from Queen’s University Vice President Research, Queen’s University Department of Medicine Research Award- CIHR Pillar, Queen’s Faculty of Health Sciences, School of Medicine and School of Nursing.