A call to protect non-clinical frontliners in the fight against COVID-19: evidence from a seroprevalence study in the Philippines.

Putong, Nimfa
Agrupis, Kristal An
Villanueva, Annavi Marie
Suzuki, Shuichi
Sayo, Ana Ria
Dimaano, Efren
de Guzman, Ferdinand
Teaño, Ruel
Salazar, Mary Jane
Evangelista, Jan Wendzl
Dimapilis, Alexis
Villarama, Jose Benito
Ariyoshi, Koya
Takahashi, Kensuke
Smith, Chris

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Publication date

January 2022

DOI

10.1016/j.lanwpc.2021.100353

Publisher

Elsevier BV

Abstract

Since the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, healthcare workers (HCW) and other hospital personnel have been regarded as “frontliners”, and at increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection compared to the general population. As such, testing only symptomatic individuals or regular testing of HCWs who directly attend to COVID-19 patients or specimens may underestimate the extent of infection, and actual SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence. Because of this, the World Health Organization has called for seroepidemiological surveys to assess the extent of infection amongst HCW and other populations to provide timely estimates of COVID-19 virus infection severity and inform public health responses and evidence-based policy decisions